She sat eating her very large strawberry ice, while he tasted his at intervals, as if he were rather afraid of it. “Did the white cockatoo die?” she asked.
He almost started, he was so surprised at the question. “The white cockatoo?”
“You spoke of it last year—that night when Mrs. Baines dined with us.”
“I remember now,” he said solemnly. “Yes; it died, Mrs. Hibbert. For five years it was perhaps my most intimate friend, and the companion of my solitude.”
“Why did it die?”
“It pulled a door-mat to pieces, and we fear it swallowed some of the fibre. My housekeeper, who is a severe woman, beat it with her gloves, and it did not recover.” He spoke as if he were recounting a tragedy, and became so silent that Florence felt she had ventured on an unlucky topic. But it was always rather difficult to make conversation with Mr. Fisher when she was alone with him; there were so few things he cared to discuss with a woman. Politics he considered beyond her, on literary matters he thought she could form no opinion, and society was a frivolity, it was as well not to encourage her to consider too much. Suddenly a happy thought struck her.
“I am so happy about our holiday,” she said; “it is a long time since Walter and I had a real one together.”
“I am delighted that it has been arranged. I feel sure that Walter will enjoy it with so charming a companion,” he answered, with an effort at gallantry that touched her.
“Are you going away this Whitsuntide?” she asked.
“No. I seldom go away from London, or my work.”