"It’s a dreadful pull—up those stairs," said Cary, rolling forward a chair and looking anxiously at Stewart as he stood wan and breathless, but smiling, in the doorway.
"It never used to be," he panted, sitting down.
"Jove, but it’s good to get back here! And you haven’t changed things a bit—even the Psyche in her old place! And the little tea kettle—Jove!"
She looked up quickly from the flowers she was just beginning to arrange.
"You are not going away, are you?" she asked.
"Home—to Scotland. The lease on the place has run out, and they think country air will brace me up a bit—so we’re going. It’ll seem queer to get back there after all these years."
"You—you’re going to give up the Grosvenor Square house?"
"Yes. I suppose, though, we’ll come back every year for the season and take a suite at the Langham or the Buckingham Gate. Father has an idea that he’ll put me through a course of politics up there, when we’re alone, and there’s nothing going on." Stewart smiled mirthlessly.
"You are thinking of going into politics, when you get strong?" asked Cary for something to say. A sudden unutterable homesickness had swept over her.
"I’m not sure—it isn’t unlikely though. I suppose that’s as good a way to serve the country as half a man can—perhaps a little better—to try and help keep one detail of the government’s work clean! Father has set his heart on the Diplomatic service for me."
"I should think you’d like that," said Cary. Talking to-day for some reason was an effort.
"I’m not sure. What are you and the Captain going to do with yourselves?"
Cary leaned against the back of a chair, tearing a stray rose leaf to pieces. She looked down at it as she spoke.
"Papa wants another tramp through the Alps. I’m not in the mood for tramping, but he’s been so good I can’t say a word. When we’ve climbed Mont Blanc again and come down, I think I’ll get Daddy to take me home. I think I’m a little mite homesick."
She turned quickly and buried her face in the roses. An odd light sprang to Stewart’s eyes.
"Haven’t you been happy in England?" he asked.
Cary lifted her head, her face dyed with the deep red of the roses.
"Happy! There’s no place like England—except America," she said. "I love every stone in England—in the United Kingdom! Months ago Daddy and I spent a July in Hertfordshire. I can see it all now; the glorious green of everything; the undulating country and the woods and the scattered old cottages, with the village in the distance and the church spire showing, and the little river and the cornfields and the poppies!" She breathed quicker. "There is only one thing sweeter I know—the old fort at home and the long beach and the sea."