"No, Con, that is not necessary. I spoke to your sister yesterday evening, and we said all there was to say."
"About her leaving?"
"About her leaving."
The young officer looked disappointed, but he had no time to press his offer, for the Baron's step was just then heard outside, and immediately afterwards he came in.
Conrad retreated into the back ground with an air of vexation, murmuring to himself as he did so:
"But the thing is not on the square, for all that."
The inevitable meeting at breakfast was over, helped through by the Baron's formal politeness, and by the constant presence of the servants; and now the carriage drove up to the terrace below. The gentlemen took their overcoats, and the maid brought Eugénie's hat and shawl. Arthur offered his arm to his wife to lead her down, for the appearance of a perfectly good understanding between them must be kept up to the last.
Grey and gloomy the morning had dawned over the hills; grey and gloomy it descended now into the valleys below. Before the windows a sea of mist ebbed and flowed, and here within doors the cold frosty morning light streaming already into the great rooms gave to them a weird and desolate look. The splendour of their decorations seemed suddenly to have lost all lustre and colour, now that they were about to be left empty once more--very empty would they be, for their young mistress was leaving them without thought of return.
Conrad noticed that his sister had precisely the same look on her face as that which just before had startled him on Arthur's; but, beyond this, he could discover nothing unusual in their appearance or behaviour. They were both fully capable of playing the parts they had undertaken, although their features betrayed that the effort to do so had cost them a sleepless night. Perhaps this icy composure of theirs was not all assumed.
When a storm has spent itself, there follows that dead calm which so often helps us with relative ease over the most dreaded passages in life. It casts a veil over the soul, and this veil obscures from it all clear consciousness of the decisive moment. The struggle and combating subside into a dull prevailing sense of pain, through which, now and again, darts a fierce sudden pang, making the sufferer reflect as to the reason of his anguish.