His eyes looked straight into hers, but they held only a great darkness in which no flicker of light burned. Avery felt as if the gulf between them had widened to a measureless abyss. Once she could have read him like an open book; but now she had not the vaguest clue to his feelings or his motives. He had as it were withdrawn beyond her ken.
"Is it to be only make-believe?" she asked at last.
"Just that," he said, but she thought his voice rang hard as he said it.
An odd little tremor went through her. She put her hand up to her throat.
"Piers, I don't know—I am afraid—" She broke off in agitation.
He leaned towards her. "Don't be afraid!" he said. "There is nothing so damning as fear. Shall we go up to her now? I promised I wouldn't be long."
She rose. He was still standing close to her, so close that she felt the warmth of his body, heard the sharp indrawing of his breath.
For one sick second she thought he would snatch her to him; but the second passed and he had not moved.
"Shall we go?" he said again. "And I say, can you put me up? I don't care where I sleep. Any sort of shakedown will do. That sofa—" he glanced towards the one by the window upon which Jeanie had been wont to lie.
"If you like," Avery said.
She felt that the power to refuse him had left her. He would do as he thought fit.