“Oh, the shop windows! Don’t talk to a poor exile of her native country that she is pining for! So you were in town; and what did you see there?”
“Nothing,” said Wat.
“Nothing!—in London! You must be the very dullest, or the most obstinate, or prejudiced—Nothing! why, everything is there!”
“You were not there; that makes all the difference. I kept thinking all the time where I should have found you had you been in London. You never will tell me where you live, or how can I see you when you go back.”
“I am not going back yet, worse luck,” she said.
“But that is no answer. I kept looking out to-day to see if I could find any place which looked as if you might have lived there. The only place I saw like you was in Park Lane, and that, I suppose—”
“Park Lane!” she cried, with a suppressed laugh; “that was like old Crockford’s niece. I could receive all my relations then.”
“You are not old Crockford’s niece?”
“No, I told you—I am a heroine in trouble,” she said. Her laugh was perhaps a little forced, but if Walter observed that at all it only increased the interest and fascination of such a paradox as might have startled a wiser man. “And is town very empty?” she said. “But the streets will be gay and the shop windows bright because of Christmas—there is always a little movement before Christmas, and things going on. And to think that I shall see nothing—not so much as a pantomime—buried down here!”
“I thought most people came to the country for Christmas,” said Wat.