s
assuming something. She, too, was afraid of him, as he of her.

"He hasn't time. He is on his way to the Continent."

"It will be bad for you to travel now. And London in August!" Her voice
was grave, reproachfully tender.

"No, dear, I promise you I will run no risk."

"Promise as much as you will"--now, gaily, sweetly, falsely, but how
pathetically, she clasped her hands about his arm;--"but I couldn't
think of letting you go alone: you didn't really believe I'd let you go
alone, darling: I'll come too, of course. Won't that be fun!--Oh, Nick,
you _want_ me to come! You don't want to get away!"--The falsity broke
down and the full anguish of her suspicion was in her voice and eyes. It
was this sincerity that pierced him and made him helpless--sick and
helpless. He was able now to blindfold its dreadful clear-sightedness by
swift resource: he acted his delight, his gratitude: he hadn't liked to
ask his dearest--all the bother for only a day and night; he had thought
it would bore her, for he must be most of the time with Collier; but,
yes, they would go together, since she petted him so; they would do a
play; he would help her choose a new hat; it would be great fun.

Yet, while he knotted the handkerchief around her eyes, turned her
about and confused her sense of direction, as if in a merry game, he
knew that fear and suspicion lurked for them both in their playing.

He had, indeed, meant to go to the doctor, but now that must be
postponed. The meeting with Collier, his chief at the Home Office, was
his only gulp of freedom. At the hotel Kitty waited, and his heart smote
him when he found her sitting just as he had left her, mute, white,
smiling and enduring. She hadn't even been to her dressmaker's or done
any shopping as she had promised him to do. "I know I am absurd;--I know
you think me, silly;--but I can't--I can't do anything--think
anything--but you!" she said, her lips trembling.

"Absurd, darling, indeed!" he answered, "as if you couldn't think of me
and order a new dress at the same time! You know I told you I wanted to
see you in a pale blue lawn--isn't lawn the pretty stuff?--And what of
the hat? You do want one?--Come, let us go out and I'll help you to
choose it."

But she did not want to go out; she only wanted to sit near him, lean
her head against him, have him make up to her for the hours of
loneliness. He knew that night at the play that she hardly heard a word,
and that when once or tw