She suspected a tenderness. “Oh, it is very kind of you. I don’t have many visitors. I am glad to see you.”
“That’s good. May I see you again, then, while I can?”
She inquired: “Are you likely to be here long?”
A light hand was necessary now. “Oh, dear no—unfortunately. A day or two at the outside; time to buy cartridges. You remember the Ogmores? I am due at Wraybrook on the seventh. Pheasants. But until then——”
This was the fourth, you see. He would be horribly in the way. “I am occupied a good part of the day,” she told him. “I have pupils.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Really! Have you—” he flushed, and leaned forward. “Have you renounced your——?”
“Not in so many words,” she said. “I have simply dropped it. Nobody knows where I am.”
“You knew that I had formally renounced mine?”
She had not known that. There was an implication in it—which she had run here to avoid; and here it was. “Did you?” she said shortly. “I’m not surprised.”
“Of course not,” he agreed. “You could not expect me to do anything else. And you have done precisely the same. That, also, I took leave to expect.” He saw concern gather in her eyes, broke off abruptly, and plunged into gossip. “Does your late world interest you still? Do you want to hear the news? Palmer Lovell’s engagement, for instance? A princess of Italy, I give you my word—a Donna Teresa Scalchi, rather a beauty, and a great shrew. Palmer can bite a bit, too. That will end in tears. And Hertha de Speyne marries abroad. Morosov, an anarchist of sort. They can collect plants in Siberia—” he broke off again, remembering that others had collected plants in Siberia. Watching her, he saw that she remembered it, too. “Oh, and old Constantine and I have kissed; we are fast friends. Once more I write speeches, which he mangles. He’s to be at Wraybrook, waiting for me. He can’t bear me out of his sight—he’s like an elderly wife. Frightful nuisance, of course—but I hope you are pleased.”