Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/24

 He glanced out, as if for the first time perceiving that there was something outside.

"Maybe. You have to remember that I wasn't present. Better sell that C. and L., Herbert. I see they've passed their dividend again."

"All right, sir. I can wire if you like."

No answer being forthcoming, Herbert decided to wire and went on with his breakfast. Now and then he raised his head and glanced at Kay, but she was looking past him, out the window.

"Marmalade?"

"No, thanks."

He was slightly worried. He had annoyed Kay, he knew, but he could not think how. Surely what he had said about this hideous country could not matter. He had brushed himself carefully that morning, but already there was a gray film of dust on his shoulders. Alkali, probably, and his hands felt dry and rough. He dipped them in his finger bowl.

"Anything this morning, sir?"

"Nothing but what I've told you."

Herbert was Mr. Dowling's secretary. He was really much more than that, but that was his official position. He drew a nice salary and saved a part of it, and had just taken on life insurance. He had very firm ideas about life insurance, even if a man's wife should come into money and never need it. One owed it to oneself to leave an estate.

But to be fair to him, he was not considering Kay for her money. He had as firm ideas about marriage as about life insurance, and he had analyzed Kay carefully before he fell in love with her. After that, first methodically and then as nearly recklessly as he ever did anything, he found himself very much in love indeed. So much so that to his annoyance he found it interfering with his tidy daily routine, which had been, until this happened, as follows:

And in the afternoons: