Page:In The Cage (London, Duckworth, 1898).djvu/124

118 moment she turned her face quite away from him, showing him so long a mere quarter of her cheek that she at last again heard his voice. He couldn't see a pair of tears that were partly the reason of her delay to give him the assurance he required; but he expressed at a venture the hope that she had had her fill of Cocker's.

She was finally able to turn back. 'Oh, quite. There's nothing going on. No one comes but the Americans at Thrupp's, and they don't do much. They don't seem to have a secret in the world.'

'Then the extraordinary reason you've been giving me for holding on there has ceased to work?'

She thought a moment. 'Yes, that one. I've seen the thing through—I've got them all in my pocket.'

'So you're ready to come?'

For a little, again, she made no answer. 'No, not yet, all the same. I've still got a reason—a different one.'

He looked her all over as if it might have been something she kept in her mouth or her