Her face remained grave, but she spoke in a tone free from suggestion of melancholy.

'I teach in a school, and to-day there is a holiday.' 'Do you live at the school ?' 'No.

I have my own lodgings.' He was on the point of asking whether Mrs.Baxendale knew she was in London, but it seemed better to suppress the question.
'Have you been there long ?' he asked instead.
'Half a year.' As he kept silence, Emily continued with a question, the first she had put.
'What have you chosen for your life's work ?' Wilfrid could not overcome the tendency of blood to his cheeks.

He was more than half ashamed to tell her the truth.
'You will laugh at me,' he said.

'I am in Parliament.' 'You are?
I never see newspapers.' She added it as if to excuse herself for not being aware of his public activity.
'Oh, I am still far from being a subject of leading-articles,' Wilfrid exclaimed.