She flushed with excitement as she read. 'This is very good. I see only one objection.'
'Objection!'
'You haven't sent it.'
'That is your fault.' And he looked as if he thought he spoke the truth.
'When did you write this?'
'Just before you came in—when she began to talk about——'
'Ah, Jean!' Vida gave him back the paper. 'That must have pleased Jean.'
It was a master stroke, the casual giving back, and the invocation of a pleasure that had been strangled at the birth along with something greater. Did he see before him again the girl's tear-filled, hopeless eyes, that had not so much as read the wonderful message, too intent upon the death-warrant of their common happiness? He threw himself heavily into a chair, staring at the closed door. Behind it, in a prison of which this woman held the key, Jean waited for her life sentence. Stonor's look, his attitude, seemed to say that he too only waited now to hear it. He dropped his head in his hand.
When Vida spoke, it was without raising her eyes from the ground.