“I hope you will not be bored,” Miss Haddon went on, as they sat down together, the intonation of her melodious elderly voice seeming to dismiss the supposition, even while she suggested it. “But, indeed, I think it is almost impossible to be bored in the country.”
Claude, who was always either in London or Paris, looked frankly astonished. In handing him his cup of tea, Miss Haddon noticed it.
“You don't agree with me?” she asked.
“I cannot disagree, at least,” he said; “because, to tell the truth, I am always in towns.”
“Probably you are happy there then,” she rejoined, with a briskness that was agreeable, because it was not a hideous assumption, like the geniality that often prevails, fitfully, at Christmas time.
But Claude could not permit his hostess to remain comfortable in this utterly erroneous belief.
“Oh, please—” he said, with gentle rebuke, “I am not happy anywhere.”
Miss Haddon glanced at him with a gay and whimsical, but decidedly acute, scrutiny.
“Perhaps you are too young to be happy,” she said; “you have not suffered enough.”