Paul Fordingbridge, with a faintly reproachful glance at his sister, interrupted his study of the financial page of The Times and put the paper down on his knee. Deliberately he removed his reading-glasses; replaced them by his ordinary spectacles; and then turned to the restless figure at the window of the private sitting-room.
"Well, Jay, you seem to have something on your mind. Would it be too much to ask you to say it-whatever it is-and then let me read my paper comfortably? One can't give one's mind to a thing when there's a person at one's elbow obviously ready to break out into conversation at any moment."
Miss Fordingbridge had spent the best part of half a century in regretting her father's admiration for Herrick. "I can't see myself as Julia of the Night-piece," she complained with a faint parade of modesty; and it was at her own wish that the hated name had been abbreviated to an initial in family talk.
