"I got back from Germany last week. It's ripping your being here to-day."
He shook hands politely with Mrs. Ogden and then, as if she did not exist, turned and drew Joan after him.
"Now then," he began, "I want to hear all about it."
"All about what? There's nothing to tell."
"Then there ought to be. Joan, what have you been doing with yourself?"
"Nothing," she answered dully, and then, quite suddenly, she proceeded to tell him everything. She was surprised at herself, but still she went on talking; she talked as though floodgates had been loosed, as though she had been on a desert island for the past two years and he were the man who had come to rescue her. He did not interrupt until she fell silent, and then: "It's all wrong," he said.
She stood still and faced him. "I don't know why I told you; it can't be helped, so there's no use in talking."
His keen grey eyes searched her face. "My dear, it's got to be helped; you can't be a kind of burnt sacrifice!"
She said: "I sometimes think we're all sacrifices one to the other; that's what Elizabeth says when she's unhappy."
"Then Elizabeth's growing morbid," he remarked decidedly. "It's the result of being bottled."