"Thank you tremendously, all the same," said Lucy, prettily polite.
"I shall have to go by myself, then," said Urquhart. "What a bore. I really am going, you know, sometime this spring, to stay with my uncle in Venice. I expect I shall come across you, Margery, with any luck. I shan't start yet, though; I shall wait for better motoring weather. No, I can't stop for tea, thanks; I'm going off for the week-end. Good-bye. Good-bye, Margery. See you next in Venice, probably."
He was gone. Lucy sat still in her characteristic attitude, hands clasped on her knees, solemn grey eyes on the fire.
"He's going away for the week-end," she said, realising it for herself and Peter. "But it's more amusing when he's here. When he's in town, I mean, and comes in. That's nice and funny, isn't it."
"Yes," said Peter.
"But one can go out into the streets and see the people go by—and that's nice and funny too. And there are the Chinese paintings in the British Museum ... and concerts ... and the Zoo ... and I'm going to a theatre to-night. It's all nice and funny, isn't it."
"Yes," said Peter again. He thought so too.
"Even when you and he are both gone to Italy," said Lucy, reassuring herself, faintly interrogative. "Even then ... it can't be dull. It can't be dull ever."
"It hasn't been yet," Peter agreed. "But I wish you were coming too to Italy. You must before long. As soon as ..." He left that unfinished, because it was all so vague at present, and he and Lucy always lived in the moment.
"Well," said Lucy, "let's have tea." They had it, out of little Wedgwood cups, and Lucy's mood of faint wistfulness passed over and left them chuckling.