"Haven't you?" She looked away from him across the green slope up which Chris and the others were disappearing.
"You ought to have played," she said irrelevantly. "Why didn't you? I am sure you would have enjoyed it better than sitting here."
She asked the question intentionally, hoping with almost childish eagerness that he would say he preferred to be where he was. She knew it would be only the polite thing to say, although in her heart she would understand that in this instance he was sincere.
But Feathers did not say it. He was filling his pipe with tobacco, ramming it down into the bowl with careful precision.
"I don't care for mixed games," he said. "Mrs. Heriot always loses her temper so shockingly."
"Does she?" She leaned her chin in her hand and looked at him with rather wistful eyes. She wondered what he would say if she told him about that little dead flower.
He broke into her thoughts.
"Has Chris told you that I am leaving England?"
The words gave her a terrible shock; the color drained away from her face, leaving her eyes very piteous against its pallor.
"Leaving—England!" she echoed the words in a whisper.