Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/161

149 'It was, indeed, a surprise to see you in London,' she was saying, 'I thought you were … In fact I did not know what to think, for you did not answer either of the letters I sent to you' 'Letters?' I said. 'I received no letter from you, excepting this morning, since November—two years ago.' 'I am a witness to the writing of at least two,' said he, looking at me with a little smile round the corners of his mouth.

'Then you did not know—' she said, 'And I had wondered why you had not written to me…' 'That Mr. Cholmeley was dead—' I said softly, perceiving that her dress was of black. '… I feared so this morning.' What sorrow was in me for her was given in the words here.

'And where have you been all this while?' she said, looking up,—'if I may ask?' I bowed my head.

'I left Glastonbury last February. I was in London for a little, and then in Paris for a little, and then in London again till now.'

'Perhaps,' he said, 'Mr. Leicester would go with you? You must have a great deal to say to one another after so long and so silent a separation?' I saw, or thought I saw, that she did not desire that I should go with her. Half-hesitation of hers was not enough to entice me. I said:

'I am afraid that, even if Lady Gwatkin should be so kind as to think of allowing me to inflict my company upon her, I should be unable to do so.' There was a surprise in this for him, perhaps for her: pleasure for me to find my nerves my own, and under the government of a Jupiter will in a serene heaven that might have seemed Olympus, if it hadn't seemed like a monkey-house on its good behaviour. She with some few gentle low sentences, bowed to or accepted my words' meaning, and then it was time for her to be going, and I drawing back with an apology to Sir James for being in the way.

Then came preliminaries of movement followed by movement, and her (and his) expressions of wish to see me again soon, and she (with him) had passed away,