The Colonel said, ponderously careless: "I imagine that he is likely to come in the late afternoon—when he does come."
"I don't know. He is in business."
"It doesn't keep him after three o'clock at his office."
She looked up surprised: "Doesn't it?" And her eyes asked instinctively: "How did you know?" But the Colonel sat silent again, his head lowered and partly averted as though to turn his good ear toward her. Clearly his mind already dwelt on other matters, she was thinking; but she was mistaken.
"When he comes," said Colonel Arran slowly, "will you have the kindness to say to him that Colonel Arran will be glad to renew the acquaintance?"
"Yes. . . . Perhaps he has forgotten the street and number. I might write to him—to remind him?" Colonel Arran made no answer.
She wrote that night:
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"I am in my own house now and am very contented—which does not mean that I did not adore being with Celia Craig and Estcourt and the children.
"But home is pleasant, and I am wondering whether you might care to see the home of which I have so often spoken to you when you used to come over to Brooklyn to see me [me erased and us neatly substituted in long, sweeping characters].