"Ah, well," he said, looking for his pipe, "we can't sit here chewing the rag all day."
I was sitting at my desk, biting my pen and staring absently at the whitey-brown vista of the garden with the cold blue ridge of the Orange Mountains showing through the delicate tracery of the wind-swept trees, when I heard Bill moving about the room behind me.
"You're not working," she observed perfunctorily. I nodded assent. I often wonder, to tell the truth, when I do work. Even when no one is by to tell me of it, I seem to spend most of my time in idleness.
"I was thinking," I said. Perhaps I was. She came up to my chair and looked out too.
"About—you know—last night?" she asked.
"Yes, I was thinking you, being a woman, would know better than I whether there is a storm brewing."
She was silent, merely looking out at the wintry landscape.
"I feel," I went on, "that being a rather dried-up old bachelor puts me at a disadvantage. What can I know of such a situation as we imagine? I, who jog along from day to day, a journeyman scribbler! What knowledge or experience have I of the heights and depths of passion? What can Peeping Tom know about it?"
"Don't!" she said. "We're all Peeping Toms, as far as that goes. I'm sure," she went on, "it's very difficult to guess what's in the mind of a woman like her. She's very handsome, you know. She's one of those women who are rather puny and pathetic in their 'teens, with appealing eyes, but who grow big and healthy later. Marriage does wonders for them."
"If the marriage is happy," I remarked casually. The silence that followed was so long that I twisted round in my chair. There was an odd expression on my friend's face, a commingling of wisdom, pity and reminiscence.