hollow on their left, the wind came booming up.

"I should have thought that for these few months just now," he
suggested, "you might have cared for a change."

"I have my work here, such as it is," she answered, a little listlessly.
"If I were in town, for instance, I should have nothing to do."

"You would meet people. You must sometimes feel the need of society
down here."

"I doubt whether I should meet the people who would interest me," she
replied, "and in any case I have my work here. That keeps me occupied."

They turned into the avenue and soon the long front of the house spread
itself out before them. Jane, who had been momentarily absorbed, looked
down at her companion.

"You are alone at the Manor?" she asked.

"Quite alone."

She became the hostess directly they had passed the portals of the
house. She led him across the hall into her little sanctum.

"This is the room," she told him, "in which I never do a stroke of
work--sacred to the frivolities alone. I shall send Morton in to see
what you will have to drink, while I change my habit. You must have
something after that walk. I shan't be long."