All the while she was thinking of the photograph on the wall behind him.
He checked himself. The little flicker of passion which had found its way into his speech and made a mess of the last of his quite admirable English fell. Again he became polite. She would almost have preferred the other manner.
“But it appears you are not interested, Miss Eva. At least you will allow me to treat you as an ordinary guest . . . an honoured guest. You will taste my coffee: perhaps you will even permit me the pleasure of showing you my poor house. Visitors are so rare . . . so very rare. And there was some music that I had promised myself to play for you . . . the tenderest music that the noble mind of a man ever made: Eva’s music . . .”
And all the time she felt that he was spinning words; that his quiet, caressing manners didn’t in the least represent what was passing in the man’s mind; that he was talking to gain time, and, while he talked, forming some plan or other which threatened her peace. She had an awful feeling that there was something mad and sinister forming within his mind. In what other wise could she explain the cool unreason with which he had almost ignored her appeal for help? It seemed as if he had put the question of James’ illness aside from the first as something that didn’t really matter; as if he wouldn’t accept it as the reason for her coming. The illogical nature of the thing frightened her. And she, too, was not listening to what he said. She was thinking: “That woman in the picture . . . how did she come to be so degraded? What, in the end, became of her?”
He went on talking in the same smoothly persuasive tones. She didn’t listen to him. She heard him laugh softly in the middle of what he was saying. She wondered if perhaps he were drunk. He came and stood close above her, putting his hand on her upper arm just below the shoulder. Through her cotton blouse she could feel the heat of it. It would have been less disturbing if it had been deadly cold.
“You are tired, you must rest a little,” he said. “I would not have you tired. You will be quiet a little. Why shouldn’t you sit down? The room is not uncomfortable. You will wait while I bring you some hot coffee. You should know how good my coffee is . . .”
He was still holding her arm. The fingers of his hand moved gently. She felt that he was permitting himself to caress it. She obeyed him. She let herself sink into the crimson cushions of the sofa. He seemed pleased with her acquiescence. “I shall not leave you for long,” he said. “Then perhaps I will see you home.”
He was gone.
She could not believe that he had left her. Somehow she had felt that she was cornered, that nothing but some extraordinary chance could save her from whatever might be the sequel of his suave, possessive manner. The opportunity of escape was presented to her so suddenly that she couldn’t grasp its significance. She sat there, on the sofa, as lacking in volition as if the heavy perfume of the place had drugged her. If she were not drugged or hallucinated it was strange that Godovius should have left her. A moment of incredible length passed. “If I don’t go now . . .” she thought. She lifted the heavy portière. In the passage all was dank and sepulchrally quiet. She moved swiftly towards the outer door. A wave of perfume rose to meet her. Then she found herself running: the white ghost of that low house watching her from behind . . .