"But I am so glad to see you!" she said, with a perfect sweetness, and her eyes said more than her words. "I should have been really vexed if I had heard you had passed through London without calling on us. Won't you sit down?"
As he sat down, she turned for a second, and without any embarrassment shut the big book that had been lying open on the table.
"It is very beautiful weather," she remarked—there was no tremor about her fingers, at all events, as she made secure the brooch that fastened the simple morning-dress at the neck, "only it seems a pity to throw away such beautiful sunshine on withered gardens and bare trees. We have some fine chrysanthemums, though; but I confess I don't like chrysanthemums myself. They come at a wrong time. They look unnatural. They only remind one of what is gone. If we are to have winter, we ought to have it out and out. The chrysanthemums always seem to me as if they were making a pretence—trying to make you believe that there was still some life left in the dead garden."
It was very pretty talk, all this about chrysanthemums, uttered in the low-toned, and gentle, and musical voice; but somehow there was a burning impatience in his heart, and a bitter sense of hopelessness, and he felt as though he would cry out in his despair. How could he sit there and listen to talk about chrysanthemums? His hands were tightly clasped together; his heart was throbbing quickly; there was a humming in his ears, as though something there refused to hear about chrysanthemums.
"I—I saw you at the theatre last night," said he.
Perhaps it was the abruptness of the remark that caused the quick blush. She lowered her eyes. But all the same she said, with perfect self-possession,—
"Did you like the piece?"
And he, too: was he not determined to play the part of an ordinary visitor?
"I am not much of a judge," said he, lightly. "The drawing-room scene is very pretty. It is very like a drawing-room. I suppose those are real curtains, and real pictures?"
"Oh yes, it is all real furniture," said she.