'Is it? I often talk to strangers.'
'What a bore they must think you!' she said, hiding one-eighth of a yawn with the tips of two fingers. 'I suppose,' she went on, with faint interest, 'you talk to them in trains when they are trying to read their paper?'
'I don't force my conversation on anyone.'
'Don't you?' she said, raising her eyebrows in sweet surprise. 'Only your company—is that it?'
'Are you alluding to the present occasion?'
'Well, you have an office of your own in this building, I believe.'
'I have.'
'Then why—'
'I am at perfect liberty,' he said, with dignity, 'to sit in my friend Blaythwayt's office if I choose. I wish to see Mr Blaythwayt.'
'On business?'