“You must have loved him very much,” he said at last.
“Yes, I did.”
“And yet – forgive me – he sounds as though he must have been a great deal older than you.”
“We were not of the same age,” she agreed. “But it did not matter. Why should it?”
“No reason,” he said hastily.
“Perhaps I may now ask some questions of you,” Shona said. “What would my duties be and why do you require languages? Do you, perhaps, have an extensive foreign correspondence?”
“I do correspond frequently, but I also travel a great deal. At this moment I have the idea of writing a book.
“It will be based on my experiences in various countries and my plan is to return to those countries immediately to gather material.”
“Your butler said that you were planning to go abroad soon,” Shona observed. “But he did not men
