"Not a mortal! You know I go to my villa to read and think. When I am tired of my own thoughts and other people's—one does tire occasionally even of Browning, even of Shakespeare—I turn to my piano, and find a higher range of thought in Beethoven. You know I go the pace all through the London season, never shirk a dance, do three cotillons a week, go everywhere, see everything."
"Yes, I know you have gone the pace, since your three years' mourning."
"After Cowes comes the reaction, a month or so in Northumberland, just to show myself to my people, and see that the gardeners are doing their duty; and then when the leaves begin to fall, away to my olive woods and their perpetual grey. For half the year I revel in solitude. If you would spend a winter with me I should be charmed, for you like the life I like, and it would be a solitude à deux. But the common herd are only good in cities. I come back to London to be sociable and amused."
Miss Rodney rose and put on her mantle.
"Can't you stop and dine? I'll send you snugly home in my brougham."
Home was a villa facing Regent's Park.
"Alas! dear, it's impossible! I am due in Cadogan Square at half-past six—Islington and Chelsea 'bus from Regent-circus."
"A lesson?"
"Two lessons—sisters, and not an iota of voice between them. But I shall make them sing. Give me a scrap of intelligence, and I can always manage that. Good-bye, Grace. Ask me to dinner some other night, when you are alone."
"Come to-morrow night, or the night after. I have no engagement, as you know. Let us see a lot of each other before the rush begins."