He saw her whole body stiffen as if she had been struck; he saw her bite her lip with a sudden little gasp, he saw the colour ebb from her cheeks. Then she recovered herself.
"Why, certainly," she said. "I have no doubt that that will be part of the programme. It generally is, I believe, in similar cases."
Vane's voice was very tender as he answered. "My grey girl," he whispered, "it won't do. . . . It just won't do. If I believed that what you say really expressed what you think, don't you know that I'd leave the house without waiting for dinner? But they don't. You can't look me in the eyes and tell me they do. . . ."
"I can," she answered defiantly; "that is what I think. . . ."
"Look me in the eyes, I said," interrupted Vane quietly.
Twice she tried to speak, and twice she failed. Then with a little half-strangled gasp she turned away. . . . "You brute," she said, and her voice was shaking, "you brute. . . ."
And as their host came down the stairs to join them, Vane laughed—a short, triumphant laugh. . . .
Almost at once they went in to dinner; and to Vane the meal seemed to be a succession of unknown dishes, which from time to time partially distracted his attention from the only real thing in the room—the girl sitting opposite him. And yet he flattered himself that neither his host nor hostess noticed anything remarkable about his behaviour. In fact he considered that he was a model of tact and discretion. . . .
Vane was drunk—drunk as surely as a man goes drunk on wine. He was drunk with excitement; he was mad with the madness of love. At times he felt that he must get up, and go round the table and gather his girl into his arms. He even went so far as to picture the butler's expression when he did it. Unfortunately, that was just when Mrs. Sutton had concluded a harrowing story of a dead soldier who had left a bedridden wife with thirteen children. Vane had not heard a word of the story, but the butler's face had crossed his mental horizon periodically, and he chose that moment to laugh. It was not a well-timed laugh, but he floundered out of it somehow. . . .
And then just as the soup came on—or was it the savoury?—he knew, as surely as he could see her opposite him, that his madness was affecting Joan. Telepathy, the wiseacres may call it, the sympathy of two subconscious minds. . . . What matter the pedagogues, what matter the psychological experts? It was love—glorious and wonderful in its very lack of restraint. It was the man calling the woman; it was the woman responding to the man. It was freedom, beauty, madness all rolled into one; it was the only thing in this world that matters. But all the time he was very careful not to give away the great secret. Just once or twice their eyes met, and whenever that happened he made some remark more inordinately witty than usual—or more inordinately foolish. And the girl opposite helped him, and laughed with him, while over the big mahogany table there came leaping her real message—"My dear, I'm yours. . . ." It whispered through the flowers in the big cut-glass bowl that formed the centrepiece; it echoed between the massive silver candlesticks with their pink shaded lights. At times it sounded triumphantly from every corner of the room, banishing all the commonplace surroundings with the wonder of its voice; at times it floated softly through the warm, scented air, conjuring up visions of nights on the desert with the Nile lapping softly on the hot sand, and the cries of the waterboys coming faintly through the still air.