interesting to talk to than the majority of people I meet every day. The castor of your chair has come upon my dress. Will you move it back a little, please?"
I pushed my chair back immediately and apologised.
"Are you going alone?" resumed Theodora.
"Quite alone."
"Is that nice?"
"No. I should have been very glad to find some fellow to go with me, but it's rather difficult. It is not everybody that one meets whom one would care to make such an exclusive companion of, as a life like that out there necessitates. Still, there's no doubt I shall be dull unless I can find some chum there."
"Some Englishman, I suppose?"
"Possibly; but they are mostly snobs who are out there."
Theodora made a faint sign of assent, and we both sat silent, staring into the fire.
"Does the heat suit you?" Theodora asked, after a pause.
"Yes, I like it."
"So do I."
"I don t think any woman would like the climate I am going to now, or could stand it," I said.
Theodora said nothing, but I had my eyes on her face, which was turned towards the light of the fire, and I saw a tinge of mockery come over it.
We had neither said anything farther, when the sound of a knock reached us, muffled, owing to the distance the sound had to travel to reach us by the drawing-room fire at all, but distinct in the silence between us.
Theodora looked at me sharply. "There is somebody else. Do you want to leave yet?" she asked, and then added in a persuasive tone, "Come into my own
