"That you and your husband would have been kindred spirits. I thought I saw your husband as I came through the gate?"
"Yes, that was my husband," I said steadily.
She looked about the garden, as though Dimbie were concealed behind the sweet-pea hedge or hidden among the rhubarb, and I had difficulty in suppressing my laughter.
"Even if you are a prisoner—poor thing—perhaps your husband would join our little coterie. What is his bent? What line does he take?"
Her conversation was mysterious, but here was a plain, simple question easily understood.
"The South-Western he used to take," I said; "but now——"
She eyed me a little coldly.
"I was not referring to railway lines," she interrupted. "I meant in what movement, art, thought, work, is he specially interested?"
"Oh," I said in confusion, "I beg your pardon. I don't think there is anything very special. My husband is rather a lazy man. He enjoys walking, and, oh," I added with inspiration, "he likes gardening."
"Gardening has been overdone," she said firmly. "Charming subject, communing with Nature and all that sort of thing; but we have had Elizabeth, Alfred Austin, Mrs. Earle, Dean Hole, and a host of others."