"
"All right. The rest is silence. Ah!" with a yawn, and getting up to
saunter round the room, "that's a jolly good song--Embrace moi!
chumph! chumph! Encore une fois!! chumph! chumph!"
He did not address me again, but somehow my ideas were scattered.
The convent scene went wrong. Ballet dancers seemed standing in the
aisle where nuns should have been kneeling, and, after a second or
so, I flung my pen down and pushed away the paper.
"Done?" exclaimed Howard, delightedly.
"Yes," I said simply, rising.
"Come and have a smoke," he said, drawing up both easy chairs to the
fire.
I took the cigar he offered and sat down. Howard threw himself into
the other chair, crossed his legs, and proceeded to give me an
account of his experiences. I suppose I was rather silent, for after
a time he broke in upon himself by saying abruptly,--
"Are you very savage with me for interrupting your work?"
"Savage?" I repeated. "Oh, no! the work can wait, I get plenty of
time at it!" Perhaps he misunderstood me, and my words conveyed to
him more than I meant. Any way, the next afternoon he came home
early to dine with me, and afterwards, when I was speaking of the
evening's work, he came up to me where I stood at the mantelpiece
and took something out of his pocket with a confident air.
"I've brought you something," he said, and he thrust suddenly into
my hand--under my eyes--a photograph.
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