Page:The Yellow Book - 08.djvu/222

"I was just thinking about you," he said deliberately, when she had shown very decidedly that she did mean to know him. He spoke with an easy indifference that she showed no signs of sharing.

"Oh, I have been wondering———" she began, in a voice that trembled with eagerness.

"Yes? Supposing we sit down. That's better. You have been wondering———?"

She leaned back in her chair, and looked up through the branches at the pale blue sky beyond. There was an odd little look of defiance on her face.

"So, after all, you did find that the Strand was the quickest way," she said abruptly.

"Possibly. And you?" he asked, with his customary smile.

"How often did you go down Oxford Street after—the last time I saw you?"

"As far as I can remember, the measure of my endurance was a week. And how much longer did you take the precaution of avoiding such a dangerous person as myself?"

She turned round and stared at him with great wondering eyes, into which a look of comprehension was slowly creeping.

"You actually thought I did that? And all the time I was ill, I was having visions of you———"

"Ill? You never told me you had been ill," he interrupted.

"You didn't exactly give me the chance, did you? It was the fog, I suppose. I am all right now. They thought I should never go down Oxford Street again. But I take a good deal of killing; and so here I am again." She ended with a cynical smile. He was making holes in the soft turf with his walking-stick. She went on speaking to the pale blue sky and the network of branches above her.

"And