“I want my dinner,” said Irene. “Here it is.”
Jane made formal announcement. They went into the little dining-room, where the table was daintily set with flowers, bright silver and glass.
“You are wrong,” she said quietly, as she helped the soup. “I am not overworking myself. I sleep like a top and haven’t an ache or pain in my body.”
“Still a change of air would do you no harm.”
She assented with idle interest. Where should she go? He suggested Spain. Zaraws, not far from St. Sebastian, on the Bay of Biscay; fairly secure from English; warm, picturesque, with the comforts of a civilised hotel. From personal acquaintance he launched forth into glowing description. The golden sands and the purple seas of the south. The olive gardens with their shivering silver and green. The dark-eyed Basques. The wealth of sun and colour. Irene leant her elbow on the table and her eyes dwelt softly on him.
“Does it please you?” he asked.
“The way you talk of it does. I would sooner have that. It does me more good. You always speak as if the subject of the moment were the one interest of your life. I wish you had a parliamentary career before you.”
He laughed. “That is dangerously near satire, Renie.”
“Women only use satire when they want to hurt, and to hurt deeply,” she said. “I want to—” She stopped, embarrassed.
“What?” he asked.