"Oh, I'm not calm inside. Don't worry about that."
I left him there—standing very straight in the garden path, his face the color of granite, and of the stillness.
XXVII
"What did he say?"
Her face was brilliant with excitement and anxiety. And I told her as well as I could.
"He was preternaturally calm and easy," I said; "I couldn't imagine a man being more well-bred about anything. But he won't say anything definite now. Of course, he ought to have time to think. We could have counted on that, if we'd thought. He will take plenty of time to make up his mind, and then he won't change it. But Lord, I'm glad he knows now; and from us."
There was a quiet knocking on the half-open door of the living-room.
"Come in.… Oh, John, you needn't have knocked."
He came in slowly and quietly, a gentle smile on his lips. The gray granite look had softened into his natural coloring.