“I am getting older, Jack,” Helen smiled, sadly. “Perhaps that is what you have noticed.”
“Nonsense,” replied Armstrong. “You used to be so bright and vivacious, and now you sit around and hardly say a word.”
She could not answer for a moment. “I did not realize that I had become such poor company, Jack. You have not seemed interested lately in the things I would naturally talk about, and of course a great deal of your conversation is upon subjects with which I am unfamiliar.”
“You are quite sure that you are not getting too tired going to all these social functions?”
“Quite sure. If you stop to think a moment, these are really the only entertainment I get. Would you prefer that I stayed here at the villa alone?”
“Why, no; unless you are doing too much of that sort of thing. Are you feeling perfectly well?”
Helen hardly knew what to reply. “Yes,” she said, at length, “I am feeling perfectly well.”
Armstrong showed his relief. “I told Uncle Peabody he was an alarmist,” he said.
“What did Uncle Peabody say?” queried Helen, straightening up, Emory’s remarks coming back to her. “I did not know that you and he had been discussing me.”
“He said that you were unhappy, and fast becoming a fit subject for Italian malaria. He had better stick to his specialty, and not try to become a general practitioner.”