CHAPTER XXXVI
COUNTERCLAIMS
There was nothing about their attitude or appearance which indicated the change. Their chairs were so close together that they almost touched. Her white, ringless hand lay in his. Through the wide-open window of their tiny sitting-room they looked down upon the river as they had sat and watched it so many evenings before. Yet the change was unmistakable. Arnold no longer guessed at it—he felt it. The old days of their pleasant comradeship had gone. There were reserves in everything she said. Sometimes she shrank from him almost as though he were a stranger. The eyes that grew bright and still danced with pleasure at his coming, were almost, a moment later, filled with apprehension as she watched him.
"Tell me again," he begged, "what the doctor really said! It sounds too good to be true."
"So I thought," she agreed, "but I haven't exaggerated a thing. He assured me that there was no risk, no pain, and that the cure was certain. I am to go to the hospital in three weeks' time."
"You don't mind it?"
"Why should I?" she answered. "The last time," she continued, "it was in France. I remember the white stone corridors, the white room, and the surgeons all dressed in white. Do you know, they say that I shall be out again in a fortnight."
He nodded.
"I can see you already," he declared, "with a gold-headed stick and a fascinating limp like Marguerite de Vallières."