“But don’t you get awfully fed up sitting in here all day long and writing in these enormous books?”
“I do, yes.”
“I should think you would… I should think you’d want to get away from it sometimes.”
“Yes. I do want to—every day—almost all the time.”
“Then why don’t you?” she said crisply. “Why don’t you go off some week-end for a little spree? I should think it’d buck you up no end.”
“It would—yes. Where should I go?”
“Oh, Paris, I suppose…. Or London! London!” she cried. “London is quite jolly if you know it.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know it.”
“But you’ve been to London,” she said in a surprised tone.
“Oh, yes. I lived there for several months.”
“Then you know London,” she said impatiently. “Of course you do.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know it very well. I don’t know many people there—and after all, that’s the thing that counts, isn’t it?”
She looked at Eugene curiously for a moment, with the faint hard smile around the edges of her lovely mouth.
“—Should think that might be arranged,” she said with a quiet, an enigmatic humour. Then, more directly, she added: “That shouldn’t be difficult at all. Perhaps I could introduce you to some people.”
“That would be fine. Do you know many people there?”
“Not many,” she said. “I go there—whenever I can.” She got up with a swift decisive movement, put her glass down on the mantelpiece and cast her cigarette into the fire. Then she faced Eugene, looking at him with a curiously bold, an almost defiant directness, and she fixed him with this glance for a full moment before she spoke.
“Good night,” she said. “Thanks awfully for letting me in—and for the drink.”
“Good night,” Eugene said, and she was gone before he could say more, and he had closed the door behind her, and he could hear her light swift footsteps going down the hall and up the steps. And then there was nothing in the house but sleep and silence, and storm and darkness in the world around him.
Mrs. Coulson came into Eugene’s room just once or twice while he was there. One morning she came in, spoke crisply and cheerfully, and walked over to the window, looking out upon the velvet lawn and at the
