“Certainly not,” he replied, lighting the pipe, “the wings are not angelic.”
“That’s right. Where would they carry me—if they had room to move?”
“Out into the wild places at the back of beyond—sometimes.”
Cecily dropped her light tone. “That’s true,” she said, slowly. “And at others?”
“No farther than town. You’d fold them, for a time at least, quite complacently in a London drawing-room, provided the other birds were of the right flock.”
“That’s also true—or was true.” The amendment was dreary.
“Sometimes when I was at the back of beyond,” continued Mayne, smoking stolidly, “I used to picture you as a celebrity, holding a salon—like those French women, you know. The charming ones—not the blue stockings. Madame Récamier—Madame de Sévigné—that sort of thing.”
“Instead of which I ride down to the village on my bicycle, and order the groceries. It’s Robert who’s the celebrity, you know.” She stooped to pick a long-stalked buttercup as she spoke. Her voice was not bitter, it was quite colorless.
“There was generally room for two in the salons, wasn’t there?” asked Mayne.
“Possibly. There isn’t on the hearth-rug.” There was rather a long pause. Mayne took out his pipe, and knocked its bowl against the stile.