"Aunt Isabelle does sometimes, but it tires her."
"Let me do it. I should never tire."
"Oh, wouldn't you mind? Could we practice a little—now?"
And so it began—the friendship in which he served her, and loved the serving.
He read, slowly, liking to see, when he raised his eyes, the slim white figure in the big chair, the firelight on the absorbed face.
Thus the time slipped by, until with a start, Mary looked up.
"I don't see what is keeping Barry."
Then Roger told her what he had been reluctant to tell. "I saw him down-town. I think he was on his way to the Country Club. He had been dining with some friends."
"Men friends?"
"Yes. He called one of them Jerry."