She half-rose and looked about her with absent eyes. Her fan and gloves lay on the sofa beside her and she picked them up mechanically.
“Yes; I suppose I must be going.”
“You’re going to Mrs. Struthers’s?”
“Yes.” She smiled and added: “I must go where I am invited, or I should be too lonely. Why not come with me?”
Archer felt that at any cost he must keep her beside him, must make her give him the rest of her evening. Ignoring her question, he continued to lean against the chimneypiece, his eyes fixed on the hand in which she held her gloves and fan, as if watching to see if he had the power to make her drop them.