She shook a bulging bag out of her immense muff, while Campton continued to stare at her.
“I didn’t know you went out so early,” he finally stammered, trying to push a newspaper over the disordered remains of his breakfast.
She lifted interrogative eyebrows. “That means that I’m in the way?”
“No. But why did you bring that money here?”
She looked surprised. “Why not? Aren’t you the head—the real head of the committee? And wasn’t the concert given in my house?” Her eyes rested on him with renewed timidity. “Is it—disagreeable to you to see me?” she asked.
“Disagreeable? My dear child, no.” He paused, increasingly embarrassed. What did she expect him to say next? To thank her for having sent him the orderly’s letter? It seemed to him impossible to plunge into the subject uninvited. Surely it was for her to give him the opening, if she wished to.
“Well, no!” she broke out. “I’ve never once pretended to you, have I? The money’s a pretext. I wanted to see you—here, alone, with no one to disturb us.”
Campton felt a confused stirring of relief and fear. All his old dread of scenes, commotions, disturbing emergencies—of anything that should upset his perpetually vibrating balance—was blent with the passionate desire to hear what his visitor had to say.
“You—it was good of you to think of sending us that letter,” he faltered.
She frowned in her anxious way and looked away from him. “Afterward I was afraid you’d be angry.”