The words jarred and the tone annoyed him. "I beg your pardon. I didn't realize that I was so terribly glum."
He spoke with a stilted conventionality that made Jean glance at him quickly. The smile went out of her eyes. She wished she had not spoken.
A silence fell between them, unusual in its artificiality. Jean tried to think of something impersonal to say, but there had never been anything effortful in these hours with Gregory and the present need made her uncomfortable. After all, a thousand incidents of which she knew nothing might have happened to depress him. He had spent the week-end with his family. The hinterland of Gregory's life came close, and Jean felt that she had intruded.
The silence deepened. Jean wished that Mary would come. She thought of getting a book, of finishing a report that she had begun, of going into the kitchen. But she never picked up a book when she and Gregory were together, nor finished office details, nor looked after Mamie in the kitchen. And this feeling that she must move, get away from Gregory, break the silence, filled her with an almost physical uneasiness. This sudden need to move beyond the reach of some tangible element in the silence, frightened her. So that Gregory, turning unexpectedly, surprised a strange, unusual look on Jean's face, that made the conventional remark he had finally succeeded in capturing unnecessary. Jean, too, was in a new mood to-night.
The silence tingled with something that Gregory felt must always have been in it. Something was pushing into the foreground, from its seclusion in the carefree weeks behind. The need to know definitely about Herrick was there before him at last. He could admit Herrick or exclude him. For a moment he had the choice, and then Jean said:
"I am afraid Rachael is going to be ill. She looked like a ghost to-day."
"What?" Gregory leaned forward, peering through the words to Jean's purpose in uttering them.
"They are getting dissatisfied. Things are not moving fast enough. And Rachael is very tired."
Jean seized Rachael and dragged her forward, held her there between herself and Gregory.
Gregory slouched back in his chair.