"I shall go for my walk now," he said, and he added in answer to her silent question, "Oh, yes, alone. I've got a thing or two I want to think about."
Her eyes dropped as he spoke. He had smiled, and she, in spite of herself, had smiled in answer; but she could not look at him while she smiled. He stood there for an instant, smiling still; then he grew grave, and turned to walk away. Her sigh witnessed the relaxation of the strain. But, after one step, he faced her again, and said, as though the idea had just struck him,
"I say, when does Dennison come?"
"In a week," she answered.
For just a moment again, he stood still, thoughtfully looking at her. Then he lifted his hat, wheeled round, and walked briskly off towards the jetty at the far end of the expanse of grass. Adela Ferrars, twenty yards off, marked his going with a sigh of relief.
Mrs. Dennison sat where she was a little while longer. Her agitation was quickly passing, and there followed on it a feeling of calm. She seemed to have resigned charge of herself, to have given her conduct into another's keeping. She did not know what he would do; he had uttered no word of pleasure or pain, praise or blame; and that question at the last—about her husband—was ambiguous. Did he ask it, fearing Harry's arrival, or did he think the arrival of her husband would end an awkward position and set him free? Really, she did not know. She had done what she could—and what she could not help. He must do what he liked—only, knowing him, she did not think that she had set an end to their acquaintance. And that for the moment was enough.
"A woman, Bessie," she heard a voice behind her saying, "may be anything from a cosmic force to a clothes-peg."
"I don't know what a cosmic force is," said Lady Semingham.
"A cosmic force? Why——"
"But I don't want to know, Alfred. Why, Maggie, that's a new shade of brown on your shoes. Where do you get them?"