She looked away without answering for some moments:
“If I thought about it, I should be very unhappy. So I try not to think about it. I try to enjoy myself and keep so busy... I miss the freedom. It’s great fun being with Aunt Connie; she’s giving me an awfully good time, and I’ve all the money and clothes I need; and I’m meeting the most wonderfully interesting people—You know what her parties are like.”
“Then what earthly excuse have you for being unhappy?”
“It isn’t everything,” she sighed.
There was no taxi to be found in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, and after a fruitless walk down the Strand they struck across the Park. At the corner of Buckingham Palace an officer in an open car, with a girl beside him, leaning on his shoulder, passed them and turned with a jerk of the head to look a second time and to wave his hand.
“Was that intended for me, do you suppose?” Eric asked. “My eyes aren’t good enough—”
“It was Johnnie Gaymer,” she answered.
Though her voice was dispassionate enough, Eric fancied that he had felt her hand dragging against his arm.
“I haven’t seen him for a long time,” he murmured.
“Nor have I... He lives in Buckingham Gate... Rather a nice flat,” she explained jerkily.