The words, the gesture, pierced his heart. She looked so disconsolate, so wan, her face the pallor of ivory, her black hair always shining smooth, pushed back from her brow in roughened strands. He had charged himself to keep from her any knowledge of the interest in Joe, but had he been of the loose-tongued sort that unburdened itself, the sight of her devastated beauty would have sealed his lips.
He sat down beside her and took her hand in his. In her turn she had been shocked by his appearance, worn, his ruddy firm-fleshed face riven with lines.
“I thought I was never going to get a word with you,” he said. “This is the first moment I’ve had. How are you?”
She asserted her well-being, and he studied her face with anxious eyes.
“Dear Anne,” he murmured, and lifting her hand, pressed it to his lips. The two hands remained together, the woman’s upcurled inside the man’s enveloping grasp.
“That faint feeling last night, I suppose that will bleach you out for a while?”
“Oh, I’m all over that. It was a crazy thing for me to do, going down and then knocking the lamp over. They didn’t think anything of it, did they?”
“Anything of it? Why no, what would they think? You explained it to them and they were satisfied with what you said. And afterward I told Williams that he could absolutely trust your word.”
“I gave a great deal of trouble and——” Her voice was husky and she cleared her throat. He was worried by the coldness of her hand and sought to warm it by enclosing it more tightly in his. After a moment she went on:
“I suppose you can’t tell me anything—anything of what they’re doing?”