"Really?" he questioned foolishly, and then, though he knew that she would never return: "For how long are you going, and how soon?"
"Very soon, because I always do things in a hurry. I don't know for how long. It's indefinite. I have had a letter from my uncles in San Francisco, and they say I must join them; they can't do without me. They are making a lot of money now, and neither of them is married.... So I suppose I must obey like a good girl. You see I have no relatives here, except Aunt Grace."
"You many never come back to England?"
(Did she colour, or was it Richard's fancy?)
"Well, I expect I may visit Europe sometimes. It wouldn't do to give England up entirely. There are so many nice things in England,—in London especially...."
Once, in late boyhood, he had sat for an examination which he felt confident of passing. When the announcement arrived that he failed, he could not believe it, though all the time he knew it to be true. His thoughts ran monotonously: "There must be some mistake; there must be some mistake!" and like a little child in the night, he resolutely shut his eyes to keep out the darkness of the future. The same puerility marked him now. Assuming that Adeline fulfilled her intention, his existence in London promised to be tragically cheerless. But this gave him no immediate concern, because he refused to contemplate the possibility of their intimacy being severed. He had, indeed, ceased to think; somewhere at the back of the brain his thoughts lay in wait for him. For the next two hours (until he left the house) he lived mechanically, as it were, and not by volition, subsisting merely on a previously acquired momentum.
He sat in front of her and listened. She began to talk of her uncles Mark and Luke. She described them in detail, told stories of her childhood, even recounted the common incidents of her daily life with them. She dwelt on their kindness of heart, and their affection for herself; and with it all she seemed a little to patronise them, as though she had been accustomed to regard them as her slaves.
"They are rather old-fashioned," she said, "unless they have altered. Since I heard from them, I have been wondering what they would think about my going to theatres and so on—with you."
"What should they think?" Richard broke in. "There's nothing whatever in that. London isn't a provincial town, or even an American city."