"It seems longer," said Agnes, looking at him thoughtfully and wondering whether he had only invited her out there as a demonstration against Sybil for disparaging him to her mother.
"I don't feel a day older."
"You're changed. We were all of us saying that before you came into the drawing-room to-night. Your mother's rather worried about you, Eric."
He lighted a cigarette to shew the steadiness of hand and eyes.
"She needn't bother," he answered easily. "I'm carrying a good deal of sail—but I'm better than I've ever been. Agnes, I don't usually talk about what I'm only thinking of doing, but with you it's different.…"
He slipped her arm through his and walked up and down the gravel path describing his conception of a novel as it had revealed itself to him a week before when he was at an Albert Hall concert. His confidence flattered her into disregarding the egotism which made him remember her only when he wanted to talk about himself; she forgot the sensation that he had outgrown her as much as he had outgrown the paper-boat races on the mill-stream by their side. Once the night wind, blowing on to her unprotected shoulders, sent a shiver through her; but it was Eric who coughed, and she wondered whether he knew why Lady Lane always looked so anxiously at his sunken cheeks and starved body. She wondered, too, whether she would have cared for him so much if he had been robust and tranquil as Geoff.
The music had ended long before he had done talking; tentative cries of "Agnes!" passed unheeded, and she was only recalled to the present by the appearance of Colonel Waring in overcoat and soft hat half-way through the open window.
"Bed-time, Agnes," he called out, sniffing the night air. "If you've been giving that girl of mine a chill, Eric——"
"You're not cold, are you?" Eric asked her.
"Not very," she answered with a tired and rather disappointed smile.