'Strangers,' she replied. 'I seem to make strangers of all the people I
meet.' She laughed in amusement at this _mot_. Siegmund looked at her intently.
He was thinking of her left alone amongst strangers.
'Need we go--need we leave this place of friends?' he said, as if
ironically. He was very much afraid of tempting her.
She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and counted: 'One, two,
three, four, five hours, thirty-five minutes. It is an age yet,'
she laughed.
Siegmund laughed too, as he accepted the particularly fine bunch of
currants she had extricated for him.