There was an interval for meditation.
“Miss Adela pretty fit?” enquired Justin.
“Oh, splendid,” said Laura.
“I should have called—but it’s such a short leave—I wish you’d explain——”
“Oh, she quite understood,” said Laura too readily, and felt the conversation sag in her hands like a caught cricket ball. She made an effort.
“Have a decent crossing?” she hazarded.
“Quite decent,” said Justin.
“Oh—good!” said Laura.
They paused again.
Laura thought she would leave things to him: she knew by experience that if he did not want to talk nothing would make him: she did not think he was embarrassed, for he had always been too absorbed in himself to be self-conscious: therefore, if he talked, it would have some significance. She waited, passively curious; for the shock of meeting him had, for the time, numbed her. She was as calm as is the heart of a whirlwind.