"My evening absences puzzled her.
"'I wonder you can like to be out nearly every evening when your mother is so ill,' she remarked severely, on my return to Connaught Place after that glimpse of paradise in Queen Square.
"'If I could be of any use to my mother by staying at home, you may be sure I should not be out, Miss Marjorum,' I replied, rather stiffly.
"'It would be a satisfaction to your mother to know you were under her roof, even when she is obliged to be resting quietly in her own room.'
"'Unfortunately my mathematical coach lives under another roof, and I have to accommodate myself to his hours.'
"This was sophistication; but it was true that I read mathematics with an ex-senior wrangler in South Kensington every other day.
"'Do you spend every evening with your coach?' asked Miss Marjorum, looking up suddenly from her needlework, and fixing me with her cold grey eye.
"'Certainly not. You know the old saw—"All work and no play——"'
"'And how do you amuse yourself when you are not at South Kensington? I did not think you knew many people in London.'
"'That is because I know very few people whom you know. My chief friends are the friends of my college life—not the worthy bucolics of Suffolk.'