He took the chair she had indicated to him on the other side of the little tea-table as he spoke, and there was nothing lame or unfinished about the words spoken as he spoke them. His eyes were fixed upon Mrs. Romayne, but she was pouring out tea with so intent a look on her face as almost to suggest preoccupation. She did not look up, nor did the tone of his voice reach her, except superficially, apparently, for she replied with a pleasant, friendly laugh.
“I should hope it did mean ‘something,’ indeed,” she said. “Friends should count for ‘something,’ surely, especially when they have really taken the trouble to miss you very much. Have you had such an unusually fascinating time in Africa, then?”
She handed him a cup of tea, and as he rose to take it from her, he answered:
“Well, not exactly that. I’m afraid I don’t believe in fascinating times, you know. Perhaps I am too much of a pessimist.”
He spoke with that tone of personal revelation and confidence which is always more or less attractive to a woman, coming from a man; and Mrs. Romayne responded with the gentle loftiness of sympathy which the position demanded.
“I’ve often been afraid you felt like that,” she said. “And it is really quite wrong of you, don’t you know. You ought to be such a particularly well-satisfied person! I suppose you are horribly ambitious? Now, tell me, has your business gone off as well as you hoped? I have been so interested in your delightful articles!”
“Does anything go off as well as one had hoped?” was the reply, spoken with a cynical smile, indeed, but with a certain daring deprecation of her disapproval, which was not unattractive. “No, I ought not to carp,” he continued quickly. “I have every reason to be satisfied.”
His tone implied considerably more in the way of success and latent possibilities about his present position than the words themselves conveyed; and Mrs. Romayne answered with cordial, delicately-expressed congratulations, which drifted into a species of general questionings as to his doings, less directly personal, but implying that he might count on her sympathy if he chose to confide in her in greater detail. This was no part of Loring’s plan, however. He led by almost imperceptible degrees away from the subject, and before very long they were talking London gossip as though he had never been away, the only perceptible result of his absence evincing itself in the touch of additional intimacy which his return seemed to have given their relations, necessarily at Mrs. Romayne’s instigation.
The talk touched here and there, and by-and-by an enquiry from Loring after a mutual friend elicited a crisper laugh than usual, and an expressive movement of the eyebrows, from Mrs. Romayne.
“Haven’t you heard?” she said. “Oh, it’s an old story now, of course! Well, they don’t come to town this season, I believe. Lady Ashton suffers from—neuralgia!”