A week ago he would have tossed back a laughingly aggrieved remark as to her unflattering indifference to his presence.

Now he was in no mood for such joking.

It was too serious a matter with him.
"You've been busy, no doubt, with--other matters," he presumed forlornly, thinking of Calderwell.
"Yes, I have been busy," assented the girl.

"One is always happier, I think, to be busy.

Not that I meant that I needed the work to _be_ happy," she added hastily, in a panic lest he think she had a consuming sorrow to kill.
"No, of course not," he murmured abstractedly, rising to his feet and crossing the room to the piano.