They were in the study, and it was ten o'clock of a wet night in April. Of late he had required her to spend the evenings with him in a strenuous effort to complete the final chapters of the journal. The illness of Mr Dawes had interrupted the work, and he was now in a fever of impatience to make up for the lost time. He had declared his intention to go abroad with his wife as soon as the manuscript was completed. The editor of a magazine, a personal friend, had signified his willingness to edit the journal and to put it into shape for publication during the summer months, against Brood's return in the fall of the year.
The master of the house spared neither himself nor Lydia in these last few weeks. He wanted to clear up everything before he went away. Lydia's willingness to devote the extra hours to his enterprise would have pleased him vastly if he had not been afflicted by the same sense of unrest and uneasiness that made incessant labour a boon to her as well as to him.
Her query followed a long period of silence on his part. He had been suggesting alterations in her notes as she read them to him, and there were frequent lulls when she made the changes as directed. Without looking at him she felt, rather than knew, that he was regarding her fixedly from his position opposite. The scrutiny was disturbing to her. She hazarded the question for want of a better means of breaking the spell. Of late he had taken to watching her with moody interest. She knew that he was mentally commenting on the changes he could not help observing in her appearance and her manners. This intense, though perhaps unconscious, scrutiny annoyed her. Her face was flushed with embarrassment, her heart was beating with undue rapidity.
Brood started guiltily.
“Your hair?” he exclaimed. “Oh, I see. You women always feel that something is wrong with it. I was thinking of something else, however. Forgive my stupidity. We can't afford to waste time in thinking, you know, and I am a pretty bad offender. It's nearly half-past ten. We've been hard at it since eight o'clock. Time to knock off. I will walk around to your apartment with you, my dear. It looks like an all-night rain.”
He went up to the window and pulled the curtains aside. Her eyes followed him.
“It's such a short distance, Mr Brood,” she said. “I am not afraid to go alone.”
He was staring down into the court, his fingers grasping the curtains in a rigid grip. He did not reply.
There was a light in the windows opening out upon Yvonne's balcony.
“I fancy Frederic has come in from the concert,” he said slowly. “He will take you home, Lydia. You'd like that better, eh?”