“Are you so hungry?” he asked, astonished to miss the playful effect he had intended to convey. Dropping into the still room, the silly words had almost a nervous note.
“Starving,” lied Azalea, easily, and knowing his unadmitted dependence upon food.
“Very well. I’ll go, too. But I’m coming back early, to-day. We must unearth that Hansard before I go to Council. It will never do to let Bedford get away with his want-of-confidence Motion on the British Preference, in this high-handed fashion! We must make him eat his words . . . and while I think of it. Miss Deane, please don’t let anyone—anyone—disturb me.”
CHAPTER 23.
Azalea lunched lightly, and then found herself an inconspicuous bench in the little park off Lewis Street. The sun was warm and golden; the air soft with the promise of approaching summer. The trees had already burst into leaf. Careless children had left their toys about on the moist walks. Gardeners, taking advantage of the dinner hour, had deserted the wire-fenced enclosures that would presently break into a melody of colour.
But Azalea saw none of these things. She was at variance with spring. More autumnal was her mood. She sat quite still, unfidgetting, yet with the air of one who is tense, who is waiting for the storm that is bound to break.
“How long can this go on?” she was thinking. “He won’t continue the pretence that things are the same. He is too honest. But what will he do, then?”
A wave of exultation surged over her. It wouldn’t be easy for him to find another secretary, she said. He would miss her in the office, to say the least. And not only in the office. His eyes had betrayed so much. Why could they not go on, she asked herself, with passionate vehemence?
They could. The whole thing rested upon her. The type of relationship that exists between men and women, always rests upon the determination of the woman. In this case, Azalea knew that she must keep Dilling from being too conscious of her. She must make none of the unspoken demands that even the least exacting woman makes upon the man who has confessed himself in love. Neither must she allow him to feel that a secret bond was held between them. Above all, she must keep his emotional temperature at its accustomed low ebb. Any suggestion of coquetry on her part, now, would disturb his tranquility, and remind him that he had violated the spirit of the narrow law governing his moral code.
Could she do all this? If so, she knew they could go on.