“What on earth are you doing?” she demanded, laughingly, “––walking all by your wild lone in the park on a wintry day!”
He explained. She made room for him and he got in.
“We rather hoped you’d be at the opera last night,” 124 she said, but without any reproach in her voice.
“I meant to go, Elorn––but something came up to prevent it,” he added, flushing again. “Were they singing anything new?”
“Yes, but you missed nothing,” she reassured him lightly. “Where on earth have you kept yourself these last weeks? One sees you no more among the haunts of men.”
He said, in the deplorable argot of the hour: “Oh, I’m off all that social stuff.”
“But I’m not social stuff, am I?”
“No. I’ve meant to call you up. Something always seems to happen––I don’t know, Elorn, but ever since I came back from France I haven’t been up to seeing people.”
She glanced at him curiously.
He sat gazing out of the window, where there was nothing to see except leafless trees and faded grass and starlings and dingy sparrows.