Sir Julian once more kept silence from a helpless sense of the impossibility of any discussion, although intuition told him that she was more or less blindly in search of a safety-valve for her perplexities.
She remained in her chair for a minute or two, looking down at the table, and only a very slight, involuntary movement of her fingers betrayed the tension of waiting.
Sir Julian paid the penalty sooner or later exacted of all those whose perceptions are acute, in realising with vividness her sense of bafflement as he remained mute.
With a sort of remnant of the pluck that he had always credited her with, she rose at last and said, "Thank you very much, Sir Julian," quite steadily.
He rose also and opened the door, and she went out.
Sir Julian remained more than ever convinced that some very forcible factor, of which he was still unaware, had entered the lists against her, and definitely defeated her.
"It's no business of mine," he reflected to himself, almost violently.
Nevertheless, he had more to hear upon the subject that same afternoon.
He met Alderman Bellew, whose discursive comments were not to be stayed.
"Easter's a very nice chap, you know," said the Alderman sapiently. "I don't like the idea of this young woman making a fool of him. He's not been looking himself for the last day or two. Didn't you think him a bit off colour at the General Meeting yesterday, now? I can assure you that he didn't look himself, to me. He looked"—the Alderman lowered his voice in a very impressive and mysterious manner—"he looked worried."