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 mere presence moved him strangely; but he was determined that this should not weaken his resolution to make some kind of stand against her; to get at the truth about her. He let her make her own disposition of clothes and busied himself with the plates.

“I’ve got a piece of news for you, Katharine,” he said directly they sat down to table; “I shan’t get my holiday in April. We shall have to put off our marriage.”

He rapped the words out with a certain degree of brusqueness. Katharine started a little, as if the announcement disturbed her thoughts.

“That won’t make any difference, will it? I mean the lease isn’t signed,” she replied. “But why? What has happened?”

He told her, in an off-hand way, how one of his fellow-clerks had broken down, and might have to be away for months, six months even, in which case they would have to think over their position. He said it in a way which struck her, at last, as oddly casual. She looked at him. There was no outward sign that he was annoyed with her. Was she well dressed? She thought sufficiently so. Perhaps she was late? She looked for a clock.

“It’s a good thing we didn’t take the house then,” she repeated thoughtfully.

“It'll mean, too, I’m afraid, that I shan’t be as free for a considerable time as I have been,” he continued. She had time to reflect that she gained something by all this, though it was too soon to determine what. But the light which had been burning with such intensity as she came along was suddenly overclouded, as much by his manner as by his news. She had been prepared to meet opposition, which is simple to encounter compared with—she did not know what it was that she had to encounter. The meal passed in quiet, well-controlled talk about indifferent things. Music was not a subject about which she knew anything, but she liked him to tell her