FullReads

“What is it?” he said. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m not!” she declared vehemently. “I wasn’t! You–you startled me–that’s all.”

She turned her back on him and hastily dabbed her eyes. She was furious with him for coming upon her thus.

He stood at the window, looking out upon the long, black barges in silence.

After a few seconds of desperate effort she controlled herself and turned round.

“I never heard you come in. I–must have been asleep.”

He did not look at her, or attempt to refute the statement.

“I thought you were going to be out this afternoon,” he said.

“So I was. So I have been. I went to the club to get my letters.”

“Didn’t you find any one there to talk to?” he asked.

“No one,” she answered somewhat hastily; then, moved by some impulse she could not have explained, “That is, no one that counts. I saw Mrs. Lockyard.”

“Doesn’t she count?” asked Caryl, still with his eyes on the river.

“I hate the woman!” Doris declared passionately.

He turned slowly round.

“What has she been saying to you?”

“Nothing.”

Again he made no comment on the obvious lie.

“Look here,” he said. “Can’t we go out somewhere to-night? There is a new play at the Regency. They say it’s good. Shall we go?”

The suggestion was quite unexpected; she looked at him in surprise.

“I have promised Vera to dine there,” she said.

“Ring her up and say you can’t,” said Caryl.

She hesitated.

“I must make some excuse if I do. What shall I say?”

“Say I want you,” he said, and suddenly that rare smile of his for which she had wholly ceased to look flashed across his face, “and tell the truth for once.”

She did not see him again till she entered the dining-room an hour later. He was waiting for her there, and as she came in he presented her with a spray of lilies.

Again in astonishment she looked up at him.

“Don’t you like them?” he said.

“Of course I do. But–but–“

Her answer tailed off in confusion. Her lip quivered uncontrollably, and she turned quickly away.

Caryl was plainly unaware of anything unusual in her demeanour. He talked throughout dinner in his calm, effortless drawl, and gradually under its soothing influence she recovered herself.

She enjoyed the play that followed. It was a simple romance, well staged, and superbly acted. She breathed a sigh of regret when it was over.

Driving home again with Caryl, she thanked him impulsively for taking her.

“You weren’t bored?” he asked.

“Of course not,” she said.

She would have said more, but something restrained her. A sudden shyness descended upon her that lasted till they reached the flat.

She left Caryl at the outer door and turned into the room overlooking the river. The window was open as she had left it, and the air blew in sweetly upon her over the water. She had dropped her wrap from her shoulders, and she shivered a little as she stood, but a feeling of suspense kept her motionless.

Caryl had entered the room behind her. She wondered if he would pause at the table where a tray of refreshments was standing. He did not, and her nerves tingled and quivered as he passed it by.

He joined her at the window, and they stood together for several seconds looking out upon the great river with its myriad lights.

She had not the faintest idea as to what was passing in his mind, but her heart-beats quickened in his silence to such a tumult that at last she could bear it no longer. She turned back into the room.

He followed her instantly, and she fancied that he sighed.

“Won’t you have anything before you go?” he said.

She shook her head.

“Good-night!” she said almost inaudibly.

For a moment–no longer–her hand lay in his. She did not look at him. There was something in his touch that thrilled through her like an electric current.

But his grave “Good-night!” had in it nothing startling, and by the time she reached her own room she had begun to ask herself what cause there had been for her agitation. She was sure he must have thought her very strange, very abrupt, even ungracious.