They went along in silence, Rachel closing her eyes as if too tired to talk, and Gerard dumb with fear and distress, and a kind of desperate pity.
It was quite plain that she had been through a harassing time, much more distressing and fatiguing than an afternoon spent in trying on new clothes could possibly have been. So he left her in peace until they got out at the tea-shop, and even then he waited until she was refreshed, and until her natural pallor had returned to her cheek instead of the unhealthy flush which had succeeded to the ghastly whiteness he had at first noticed on meeting her.
Then it was she who, noting his eyes fixed upon her face with stealthy interest, asked him abruptly—
“Why did you wait for me?”
He hesitated.
“I didn’t know how long you would be. I—I was not sure where you were,” he began. Then changing his mind he said suddenly, “And something had happened at the stores to interest me—the shop-lifting.”
She looked at him steadily.
“What was that?” she asked.
But he lost his patience, and said curtly—
“Oh you must know. Why pretend you don’t?”