Perhaps they were still going on being considerate, I thought. At least, perhaps Mrs. Barnes was. My uncle's silence was merely ominous of what I was in for, of how strongly, after another night's thinking it out, he felt about my affairs and his own lamentable connection with them owing to God's having given me to him for a niece. But Mrs. Barnes—why didn't she talk? She couldn't surely intend, because once I had a headache, to go on tiptoe for the rest of our days together?
Nobody having taken any notice of my first announcement I presently said, 'I'm very well indeed, thank you, this morning.'
At this Dolly laughed, and her eyes sent little morning kisses across to me. She, at least, was in her normal state.
'Aren't you—' I looked at the other two unresponsive breakfasting heads—'aren't you glad?'
'Very,' said Mrs. Barnes. 'Very.' But she didn't raise her eyes from her egg, and my uncle again took no notice.
So then I thought I might as well not take any notice either, and I ate my breakfast in dignity and retirement, occasionally fortifying myself against what awaited me after it by looking at Dolly's restful and refreshing face.
Such an unclouded face; so sweet, so clean, so sunny with morning graciousness. Really an ideal breakfast-table face. Fortunate Juchs and Siegfried, I thought, to have had it to look forward to every morning. That they were undeserving of their good fortune I patriotically felt sure, as I sat considering the gentle sweep of her eyelashes while she buttered her toast. Yet they did, both of them, make her happy; or perhaps it was that she made them happy, and caught her own happiness back again, as it were on the rebound. With any ordinarily kind and decent husband this must be possible. That she had been happy was evident, for unhappiness leaves traces, and I've never seen an object quite so unmarked, quite so candid as Dolly's intelligent and charming brow.
We finished our breakfast in silence; and no sooner had the table been plucked out from our midst by the swift, disconcerting Antoines, than my uncle got up and went to the window.
There he stood with his back to us.
'Do you feel equal to a walk?' he asked, not turning round.