Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/174

160 then, after an instant, "To see his child," he colourlessly said.

"He desires that?" Dennis asked with an accent that emulated this detachment.

"He desires that." Dennis turned away, and in the pause that followed the air seemed charged with a consciousness of all that between them was represented by the unspoken. It lasted indeed long enough to give to an auditor, had there been one, a sense of the dominant unspeakable. It was as if each were waiting to have something from the other first, and it was eventually clear that Dennis, who had not looked at his watch, was prepared to wait longest. The Doctor had moreover to recognise that he himself had sought the interview. He impatiently summed up his sense of their common attitude. "I do full justice to the difficulty created for you by your engagement. That's why it was important to have it from your own lips." His companion said nothing, and he went on: "Mrs. Beever, all the same, feels that it mustn't prevent us from putting you another question, or rather from reminding you that there's one that you led her just now to expect that you'll answer." The Doctor paused again, but