Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/47

Rh He looked at his watch. "It’s nowhere near time for you to be moving yet."

"You must not trifle about affairs of state," she said. "At a definite hour I have business at the palace."

"Oh, for that matter, so have I. But it’s half-past four. To call half-past four a definite hour would be to do a violence to the language."

"It is earlier than I thought," she admitted, discontinuing her operation with the glove.

He smiled approval. "Your heart is in the right place, after all. It would have been inhuman to abandon me. Oh, yes, pleasantry apart, I am in a condition of mind in which solitude spells misery. And yet I am on speaking terms with but three living people whose society I prefer to it."

"You are indeed in sad case, then," she compassionated him. "But why should solitude spell misery? A man of wit like you should have plenty of resources within himself."

"Am I a man of wit?" he asked innocently.

Her eyes gleamed mischievously. "What is your opinion?"

"I don’t know," he reflected. "Perhaps I might have been, if I had met a woman like you earlier in life."

"At all events," she laughed, "if you are not a man of wit, it is not for lack of courage. But why does solitude spell misery? Have you great crimes upon your conscience?"

"No, nothing so amusing. But when one is alone, one thinks; and when one thinks — that way madness lies."

"Then do you never think when you are engaged in conversation?" She raised her eyebrows questioningly.

"You should be able to judge of that by the quality of my remarks. At any rate, I feel."

"What do you feel?"

Rh