Thinking: I shall be sooner away, he murmured:

“In here, if you don’t mind.”

The coffee things came in. Eric had the tray placed before him. Lily faintly smiled. Ritual survives, he thought. She values that. He placed the spirit-lamp beneath the flask of the percolator.

“You see I’ve got some new cups?”

“Yes.”

“How do you like them?”

He looked at them dully. Cups, he thought. Cups.

“They’re very nice.”

She seemed pleased.

“I got them at that new shop just opposite the Bank. I don’t know whether you noticed it as you came past to-day?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Lily sipped her coffee. She said to the maid:

“Just bring in the cigarette-box from the drawing-room, please.”

It came in. The silver box with the signatures upon it in facsimile of the friends of Father’s who’d given it as a wedding present. Inside it was an unopened cardboard packet of cigarettes.

“Those are the sort you like, aren’t they?”

“Yes, thank you. They are.”

He broke open the packet, lit a cigarette. He didn’t want it. She said:

“Why not take the whole packet?” She smiled sadly. “They’ll only get stale.”

“Thank you very much.”

Obediently, he put them into his pocket. She watched him smoke.

“Have you been back long?”

“Only three or four days.”

Why do you ask all this? his mind appealed to hers.

“What part of the country were you in, this time?”

“In South Wales.”

Suddenly, she gave a bright, quick, playful smile, like a child asking:

“Tell me the names of the places,” then added, as though challenging him laughingly to refuse her: “I like to look them out on the map.”

She was extraordinary. She could always astonish him. He repeated the names dully. She repeated them after him, asking how they were spelt.

“And where shall you go to next?”

“I don’t know,” he lied.

She smiled. It seemed to him that she understood perfectly what he felt, had even taken a gently mocking interest in seeing how far he would allow himself, to-day, to be questioned.

The clock on the mantelpiece chimed. He pretended surprise, clumsily, unused to such manœuvres:

“I must be in the City in half an hour.”

“Must you?” She smiled sadly. They rose. She asked:

“When am I to have the pleasure of another visit?”

He flushed.

“I may be going away again soon. I’ll let you know.”

“You mustn’t come unless you can spare the time. I don’t want to keep you from your work.”

Again she was sadly mocking. But he would not reply. She asked, as though without object:

“Shall you be seeing the Scrivens before you leave London?”

“I saw them last night. There was a concert.”

“Oh, how nice!”

Eric challenged the wistfulness of her tone.

“If ever you cared to come, I’m certain they’d give you a ticket.”