"Vanda told me your explanation."
"Explanation! It was the truth."
Ian's gray eyes were bright with hostility as he said:
"She has just told me you want to get married at once. I don't approve."
"Indeed!" this sarcastically. "Why?"
Ian paused for a moment. It was getting harder and harder for him to say what he wanted without saying too much, without betraying himself. He took up the open book that lay on the table, glanced at its title, laid it down again. Joseph made no attempt to help him out. The air was full of tension. The least unguarded word would start a quarrel. And neither of them wanted that.
"For one reason," he began at length, "I don't like her to leave home without a rag to her back." He remembered the sables and fine linen he had seen at Warsaw for her, and Joseph wondered why he frowned.
"The date was fixed for the end of this month," the bridegroom reminded him.
"I know. If not for the war, mother would have had the things ready for her. But you know what sort of life we've been leading since you were here last."
Joseph nodded. He noticed for the first time that his cousin had aged in those few weeks; there were lines on his face and gray hairs round the temples that ought not to have been there.