“It is lovely, and it was very kind of you to remember me.”
“Remember you? You were in my thoughts day and night.”
She smiled to dispel the tension. “I shall enjoy hearing about your travels. A friend of yours has told me something of them.”
“Ah! Miss Golightly. You have seen her, then, at your cousin’s? A companionable woman; and she knows her Europe. Yes, we compared notes regarding our travels.”
He colored slightly, but only at the remembrance of having confided to this comparative stranger his bosom’s secret under the spell of an ocean intimacy.
“You brought home other things, I dare say?” Mary asked after a pause, glancing up at him.
“Oh, yes!” The trend of the question was not clear to him, but he was impelled to add: “For one thing, I ordered clothes enough to last me three years at least. I bought gloves galore for myself and for my sister. As I belong to the working class, and there is no knowing how soon I may be able to get away again, I laid in a stock of everything which I needed, or which took my fancy. Men’s things as well as women’s are so much cheaper over there if one knows where to go.”
“With the duties?”
The words, gently spoken, were like a bolt from the blue. George betrayed his distaste for the inquiry only by a sudden gravity. “Yes, with the duties.” He hastened to add: “But enough of myself and my travels. They were merely to pass the time.” He bent forward from his chair and interrogated her meaningly with his glance.
“But I am interested in duties.”