Her school-days in Naples were most redolent of
delightful memories. She broke off once or twice into the
language, and he listened with delight to her soft accent.
Finally the time came when dessert was set upon the table.
"I have ordered coffee up in the little sitting-room again," she
said, a little shyly. "Do you mind, or would you rather have it
here?"
"I much prefer it there," he assured her.
They sat before an open window, looking out upon some elm trees
in the boughs of which town sparrows twittered, and with a
background of roofs and chimneys. Margaret's coffee was
untasted, even her cigarette lay unlit by her side. There was a
touch of the old horror upon her face. The fingers which he drew
into his were as cold as ice.
"You must have wondered sometimes," she began, "why I ever
married Oliver Hilditch."
"You were very young," he reminded her, with a little shiver,
"and very inexperienced. I suppose he appealed to you in some
way or another."
"It wasn't that," she replied. "He came to visit, me at
Eastbourne, and he certainly knew all the tricks of making
himself attractive and agreeable. But he never won my heart--he
never even seriously took my fancy. I married him because I
believed that by doing so I was obeying my father's wishes.
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