“Something I want you to know. Shall we wait and turn into the library?”
“I’m rushed to death this morning. I have to be at Mrs. Brocklebank’s at ten, and——”
“All right. I’ll talk while you finish your breakfast. It won’t take long.”
She prepared to listen to him with the patient air of an over-worked official whose inward eye remains fixed upon insistent accumulations of business. It did not strike her that there was anything unusual about his manner, or that his voice was the voice of a man who touched the deeper notes of life.
“Eve Carfax is coming back as my secretary and art expert. She has given up her work in town.”
“I am really very glad, James.”
“Thanks. She got entangled in the militant campaign, but the extravagances disgusted her, and she broke away.”
“Sensible young woman. She might help me down here, especially as she has some intimate knowledge of the methods of these fanatics.”
“It is possible. But that is not quite all that I want to tell you. In the first place, I built the new cottage with the idea that she would come back.”
His wife’s face showed vague surprise.