"And you—you write letters?"
"No, I do not; I have not anyone to write to."
A pang of shame at his unworthy suspicion, coupled with a sense of astonishment at her simple confession of friendlessness, prevent his speaking; and it is she who goes on:
"I was writing an Italian exercise; I began to learn Italian in Florence"—with the inevitable low sigh that always accompanies her mention of that name—"and to-day, for something to do, I took it up again. It has been a long day, has not it? Oh, what a long day!"
"Long!" repeats Jim emphatically; "it might choose to call itself a day; but many a century has been shorter."
"Someone was playing battledore and shuttlecock in the hall. I wonder to what number they kept it up? how many years it is since I have played battledore and shuttlecock!"
There is a suppressed envy in her tone, which tells how far from disagreeable the innocent noisy pastime to which she alludes would be to her even now. She has sat down again on the straight-backed chair from whose elevation she had commanded her Italian studies; a large grayish cloak, lined and heavily collared, and bordered with fur, hangs, unfastened at the throat, about her. Out of the dark beaver her delicate neck and head rise, like a pale primrose from out of piled dead oak-leaves in a yet wintry wood. Through the door, which he has left open behind him, come bursts of maniac mirth from the votaries of Dumb Crambo.
"What a noise they are making!"
"I should think they were!"
"I wonder what they are doing?"