He was out on the step. "Good-bye," he said, with the look that hurt me, so tired—disappointed.
He had come for peace—for my mother's tranquil spirit to bring rest to his tired mind. And all he had found here was my mother's daughter fretting to be out in the fray! I had not even listened. I had interrupted and pulled away my hand.
After I shut the door, I opened it again, and called out: "Oh, what was it you were going to tell me?"
"It wouldn't interest you," he said, without even turning round.
CHAPTER XVI
THE YACHTING PARTY
I had to make use of Eric's old plea, "pressure of work," to account for his going away without seeing my mother.
I watched the clock that next afternoon in a state of fever. Would he come again at three, so that we might talk alone? No. The torturing minute-hand felt its way slowly round the clock-face, its finger, like a surgeon's on my heart, pressing steadily, for all my flinching, to verify the seat and the extent of pain.
Four o'clock. Five. Half-past. No hope now of his coming, I told myself, as those do who cannot give up hope.
My mother questioned me. What had Mr. Annan said the day before? Had he, then, come so early for "nothing in particular"? I said that I supposed he had come early because he found he could not come late.
About six o'clock, as I was counting out some drops for my mother, a ring at the front door made me start and spill the liquid on the table. He had relented! He was coming to say the things I had been so mad as to prevent his saying yesterday. We listened. My heart fell down as a woman's voice came up. Lady Helmstone! Wanting to see my mother "very particularly." We wondered, while the maid went down to bring her, what the errand might be which could not be entrusted to Bettina. For, wonderful to say, Bettina was to be allowed to go to a real dinner-party that night at the Hall. Hermione had written from London, begging that Betty might come and hear all about the yachting party.