“You see, I hadn’t very much to remember in those days.”
“It’s five years ago—” he hesitated.
“Five this last summer, and a good many things have happened since then. My father’s dead—three years ago—and I’m a good young curate’s wife. And you? But I needn’t ask; the newspapers have told me all about you. Are you still full of enthusiasms?”
“I suppose so. I think so, only they’re crystallizing into practices. As we grow older the brain grows stiff, and we’re not so ready to go climbing mountains to achieve impossible heights.”
“You’ve climbed pretty high. A step higher to-day—A.R.A. Fame, success and money, that’s a fairly high mountain to have climbed—at least it looks so to me.”
The forlorn tone of her voice confirmed the impression his first sight of her had made upon him. He looked at her keenly as she sat there with her eyes fixed upon her tea which she was stirring slowly. She had become a very lovely woman and a poor curate’s wife.
“Lonely?” he asked almost unintentionally.
“Did I say lonely?” she asked looking quickly at him. “We were talking in metaphors. I suppose that way of talking was invented by some one who didn’t want to blurt out ugly truths.”
“Or who fancied that commonplace ideas become uncommon when divorced from commonplace words.”
“It’s strange, isn’t it, sitting here, chatting like old friends—after all this time? You didn’t answer my question: have you ever been in Kennington?”