The cab halted and he put her inside.
“6 Maximiliansstrasse,” he called to the driver, and got in himself and banged the door behind him.
Then he threw himself back against the cushions, covered his eyes with his hand, and remained silent and motionless the ten minutes that they were en route.
She did not speak either; she dared not. The air was so heavy with sorrow and despair that words would have seemed like desecration; and the telepathic misery that emanated from him loaded her soul as if she had been guilty of a crime.
When the cab stopped he opened the door, and as he turned to give her his hand she caught one shocked glimpse of the grief in his face—of the oddly drawn look of suffering in his half-closed eyes. The whole change in him, in them, in it all, had come so quickly that as she stepped from the cab she was conscious of a stunned sensation, a dazed lack of feeling, a cold and stony power to bear much—for a little while.
“Go by the door,” he said in muffled tones, “I must pay the cab.”
She crossed the width of the sidewalk and stood by the great porte, waiting.
When the cabman was disposed of he came to her side, and felt in his pocket for the keys. Then he took his gloves off and felt again; as he felt he stared steadily across the street.
“It’s the round key,” she said, when he finally produced them. “Have you any tapers? I’m afraid that the hall will be dark.”
He shrugged his shoulders as if tapers were of no earthly consequence in such a time of stress. Then he fitted the key in the lock and swung back the massive portal.