“Oh, not till the early spring! There’s no immediate despair,” said Finlay, “but it is dislocating. My books and I had just succeeded in making room for one another.”
“But you will have to move, in any case, in the early spring.”
“I suppose I will. I had—I might have remembered that.”
“Have you found a house yet?” Advena asked him.
“No.”
“Have you been looking?” It was a gentle, sensible reminder.
“I’m afraid I haven’t.” He moved in his chair as if in physical discomfort. “Do you think I ought—so soon? There are always plenty of—houses, aren’t there?”
“Not plenty of desirable ones. Do you think you must live in East Elgin?”
“It would be rather more convenient.”
“Because there are two semidetached in River Street, just finished, that look very pretty and roomy. I thought when I saw them that one of them might be what you would like.”