“Poor boy,” she said, “I’ve rather a horrid dinner for you. I was dining out, and you didn’t give me time——”
“You broke a dinner engagement for me, Eris?”
“I telephoned Nancy Cassell that I couldn’t come. It doesn’t matter.... Anyway, that’s why you’re having omelette and minced chicken....”
Now and then she slipped her cool, smooth hand into his under the camouflage of the cloth. And she ate so, sometimes awkwardly; and clung a little to his hand when he would have released hers.
Once she drew a deep, uneven breath: “I never expected to be in love,” she said. “Oh, Barry, it’s so inconvenient!”
“How?” he protested.
“My dear! I work like the dickens! It would be all right if I could come back to you at night. But this way——”
After a silence: “That must happen, too, Eris.”
“I’ll have to talk to you about that.... And there are evenings when I must study—rehearse before the mirror—or read very hard. And some evenings I am dead tired.... And then there are dinners.... And one’s friends.... Darling!—you look at me so oddly!”
“Well—as I’m in love with you, I’d rather like to see you more than twice a year——”