"In a greater hurry!" he repeats, in an accent of acute surprise. "Why, child, what are you talking about? Since we landed, I have neither slept nor eaten. I drove straight across London, and have been in the train ever since."
"But—between—this—and the—station?" suggest I, slowly, having taken hold of one of the buttons of his coat; the very one that in former difficulties I used always to resort to.
"You mean about my walking up?" he says readily, and without the slightest trace of guilty consciousness, indeed with a distinct and open look of pleasure; "but, my darling, how could I tell how long she would keep me? poor little woman!" (beginning to laugh and to put back the hair from his tanned forehead). "I am afraid I did not bless her when I saw her standing at her gate! I had half a mind to ask her whether another time would not do as well, but she looked so eager to hear about her husband—you know I have been seeing him at St. Thomas—such a wistful little face—and I knew that she could not keep me more than ten minutes; and, altogether when I thought of her loneliness and my own luck—"
He breaks off.
"Are you so sure she is lonely?" I say, with an innocent air of asking for information, and still working hard at the button; "are people always lonely when their husbands are away?"
He looks at me strangely for a moment; then, "Of course she is lonely, poor little thing!" he says, warmly; "how could she help it?"
A slight pause.
"Most men," say I, jealously, "would not have thought it a hardship to walk up and down between the laurustinus with Mrs. Zéphine, I can tell you!"
"Would not they?" he answers, indifferently. "I dare say not! she always was a good little thing!"
"Excellent!" reply I, with a nasty dryness, "bland, passionate, and deeply religious!"