But Magdalen never came, nor news from her. Flowers came every other day or so, flowers that filled the room and exercised the ingenuity of nurses to provide vases, but there was no message in them, they were only flowers. He was indifferent to them, he grew to hate them....
He was convalescent now, well out of weakness, and would very soon be moving from the nursing-home. He had taken the air once or twice, gently. And Trevor came to see him one afternoon. Ivor took out the cards for the game of picquet that they would play.
“You know,” Trevor casually said, “Magdalen has gone away.”
“Oh,” said Ivor.
“She’s gone,” Trevor said, “to Spain. For some time, I think. Magdalen is like that, as you know. When she is in London she stays for years, but once she is away she stays away for years.”
Ivor had nothing at all to say to that. Somehow he had known all the time that Magdalen had gone away. She hated a mess. She would make a wonderful playwright—if plays consisted only of exits! But she might just have written to him....
“I say, Ivor,” Trevor said quickly. “She wrote to me to tell you that she had gone away, as soon as you were better. Just that.... You knew, of course, that she was here all the time you were really ill?”
“Yes,” said Ivor. “Thanks so much, old man....”
“It’s your deal,” Trevor said.