“And what are we to do in the interval? It isn’t half-past three yet.”
“Rest, Sophy; sleep if you can. We are going to a theatre to-night, and a dance afterwards.”
“It is so near the end of the season,” sighed Sophy. “People are all rushing off to Germany for their cures. One feels quite out of it when one has no complaint to talk about.”
Vansittart was at home. Eve went straight to his den, sure to find him there, smoking over a book or a newspaper.
He looked up at her smilingly, but she thought he looked weary and worn out, and when the smile was gone there was a troubled expression.
“Was it a lively luncheon, Eve?” he asked, giving her his hand as she took up her favourite position behind his high-backed chair.
It was a colossal chair, with cushioned arms, upon one of which she sometimes seated herself, liking to nestle against him, yet not so loquacious as to interrupt his reading; sometimes reading with him; dipping into some French novel which he read from sheer idleness, not because he had any taste for the thinly beaten gold-leaf of Maupassant or Bourget.
To-day she stood behind his chair, silent, meditative, while he read and smoked.
“Was it pleasant—your party?” he asked presently, repeating the question she had left unanswered.