There was a long silence.
The noise of Kensington High Street reached us like the growl of some tired animal. An owl came across from Holland Park and alighted in a tree near us.
“You should have married him,” said Essie at last.
“Married him!” I exclaimed, “but you don’t understand.” And I went over the whole dreadful story again—at full length. Love affairs are never condensed. If they are told at all they are recounted in full.
“I don’t see that any of those things matter,” she said when I had finished, or rather when I paused.
“Where is he now?”
“In Turkistan, I believe.”
“Why not go to Turkistan?” She spoke as if it were just round the corner.
“Turkistan!”
“Well, it’s somewhere on the map, I suppose. What does it matter where it is.”