Mdlle. Leroux had been boiling a kettle; and they sipped tea, and, at first, did not talk. But tea unlooses the bonds of speech. After their second cups they felt communicative.
“One week gone out of my four,” Bellairs said, “and each will seem shorter-lived than its forerunner.”
“You go in three weeks from now?” said Mdlle. Leroux, with an uneven intonation that betokened a sudden awakening to the finality of things.
“Yes; at the end of January.”
“And we are here until nearly the end of March.”
“Yes,” said Lady Betty; “it will seem a very long time. February will be eternal.”
“It is the shortest month in the year,” Bellairs remarked.
Mdlle. Leroux looked at him sarcastically.
“You English are so prosaic,” she exclaimed. “Any Frenchman would have understood.”
“What?”