Before the strong, free youth of Roger, her father and mother shrank, small, aging, pitiful. Little gray things, scuttling over the surface of their flat, uninteresting world, never looking up, their worried little eyes fastened on their own food and shelter. Units, among incalculable millions of others, all frightened, worried, and avid of personal comfort. To explain was to strip them bare, tear off the meager covering of their self-respect, expose their one pride in all its narrow rigidity.
At last Anne put down her knife and fork and looked at Roger.
"Roger, you asked me to trust you, yesterday. Won't you trust me? You're right, I was not ill. Something did happen and I couldn't have you come."
But no generous yielding softened Roger's eyes.
"It's different, Anne. Yesterday, when I asked you to have faith in me, it was a question between ourselves. But this—there are others. I feel surrounded by enemies. I don't even know which side——"
He bit the sentence, but Anne finished it for him.
"——I am on."
"Because you're not being open with me."
"Neither are you being honest. You do know, but you want to force me to say."
Anne's lip trembled and Roger looked quickly away. In this, their first misunderstanding, Roger wanted no emotional element to enter.