"I don't imagine my affection makes any great difference in your life," he interrupted stiffly.
"Dear Eric, let me laugh at you sometimes! It's good for you and it's ever so good for me. It isn't as if I'd laughed so very much lately.… I will come home and I'll go straight to bed. But—don't be too hard on me, Eric."
Her voice was trembling, and her eyes had again filled with tears.
"May I say that I'm 'not in the habit' of being hard on people? But—I don't understand you."
"Ah, now you're repeating yourself," she threw back flippantly over her shoulder, as she went to bid Mrs. Shelley good-night. "I'm telling Marion I've got a headache."
Eric felt that he was slipping into the practice of letting people make a fool of him.…
4
Though it was a fine night, they sought in vain for a taxi and had to walk the whole way from Chelsea to Berkeley Square, Barbara with her arm through Eric's and her hand in his, leaning against him.
"I'm going away on Saturday," she reminded him, as they entered Eaton Square.
"High time, too," he answered.