“From Owen! He must have rushed off somewhere in the motor.”
She felt a secret stir of pleasure at the immediate inference that she and Darrow would probably lunch alone. Then she opened the note and stared at it in wonder.
“Dear,” Owen wrote, “after what you said yesterday I can’t wait another hour, and I’m off to Francheuil, to catch the Dijon express and travel back with them. Don’t be frightened; I won’t speak unless it’s safe to. Trust me for that—but I had to go.”
She looked up slowly.
“He’s gone to Dijon to meet his grandmother. Oh, I hope I haven’t made a mistake!”
“You? Why, what have you to do with his going to Dijon?”
She hesitated. “The day before yesterday I told him, for the first time, that I meant to see him through, no matter what happened. And I’m afraid he’s lost his head, and will be imprudent and spoil things. You see, I hadn’t meant to say a word to him till I’d had time to prepare Madame de Chantelle.”
She felt that Darrow was looking at her and reading her thoughts, and the colour flew to her face. “Yes: it was when I heard you were coming that I told him. I wanted him to feel as I felt ... it seemed too unkind to make him wait!” Her hand was in his, and his arm rested for a moment on her shoulder.
“It would have been too unkind to make him wait.”
They moved side by side toward the stairs. Through the haze of bliss enveloping her, Owen’s affairs seemed curiously unimportant and remote. Nothing really mattered but this torrent of light in her veins. She put her foot on the lowest step, saying: “It’s nearly luncheon time—I must take off my hat...” and as she started up the stairs Darrow stood below in the hall and watched her. But the distance between them did not make him seem less near: it was as if his thoughts moved with her and touched her like endearing hands.