"Then I'll find her. She seems out of sorts, and I'm trying to make her see the doctor."
"I am sorry for that." Laying aside the book, Alan sprang to his feet, and stood gazing anxiously into the other's face. "She always appears so strong that one comes to take her fitness as a matter of course."
"Yes, I never saw her look badly until the last day or two. Have you noticed it, Angelica?"
Without replying to his question, Angelica rested her head against the pink velvet cushion, and turned a gentle, uncomprehending stare on his face. It was her most disconcerting expression, for in the soft blankness and immobility of her look, he read a rebuke which she was either too amiable or too well-bred to utter. He wondered what he had done that was wrong, and, in the very instant of wondering, he felt himself grow confused and angry and aggressive. This was always the effect of her stare and her silence—for nature had provided her with an invincible weapon in her mere lack of volubility—and when she used it as deliberately as she did now, she could, without speaking a syllable, goad him to the very limit of his endurance. It was as if her delicate hands played on his nerves and evoked an emotional discord.
"Have you noticed that Mary is not well?" he asked sharply, and while he spoke, he became aware that Alan's face had lost its friendliness.
"No, I had not noticed it." Her voice dropped as softly as liquid honey from her lips. "I thought her looking very well and cheerful at tea." She spoke without movement or gesture; but the patient and resigned droop of her figure, the sad grey eyes, and the hurt quiver of her eyelashes, implied the reproach she had been too gentle to put into words. The contrast with her meekness made him appear rough and harsh; yet the knowledge of this, instead of softening him, only increased his sense of humiliation and bitterness.
"Perhaps, then, there is no need of my speaking to her?" he said.
"It might please her." She was sympathetic now about Mary. "I am sure that she would like to know how anxious you are."
For the first time since he had entered the room she was smiling, and this slow, rare smile threw a golden radiance over her features. He thought, as Caroline had done several afternoons ago, that her beauty, which had grown a little dim and pale during the autumn, had come back with an April colour and freshness. Not only her hair and eyes, but the ivory tint of her skin seemed to shine with a new lustre, as if from some hidden fire that was burning within. For a minute the old appeal to his senses returned, and he felt again the beat and quiver of his pulses which her presence used to arouse. Then his mind won the victory, and the emotion faded to ashes before its warmth had passed to his heart.
"I'll go and find her," he said again, with the awkwardness he always showed when he was with her.