To think that the little dried up schoolmasterish man was Professor Lee Ramsden, prowling about outside the group, eager and shy, waiting to be introduced to you, nobody taking the smallest notice of him. The woman who had brought him making soft, sentimental eyes at you through the gaps in the group, and trying to push him in a bit nearer. Then Richard asking you to be kind for one minute to the poor old thing. It hurt you to see him shy and humble and out of it.
And when you thought of his arrogance at Durlingham.
It was the women's voices that tired you so, and their nervous, snapping eyes.
The best of all was going away from them quietly with Richard into
Kensington Gardens.
"Did you like it, Mary?"
"Frightfully. But not half so much as this."
IV.
She was all alone in the front room, stretched out on the flat couch in the corner facing the door.
He was still writing his letter in the inner room. When she heard him move she would slide her feet to the floor and sit up.
She wanted to lie still with her hands over her shut eyes, making the four long, delicious days begin again and go on in her head.