'Servia and Montenegro have declared war against Turkey,' he replied, busying himself with his plate.
'And you must go?'
He stirred his coffee very deliberately, and, raising the cup to his lips, took a long critical sip.
'Yes, Brenda. I must go!'
There are few more silent places than the cabin of a sailing yacht on a calm day. In a steamer it is different, for there is the ever-beating throb of life down below, in the engine-room, which is half heard and half felt. But on a sailing yacht, when the rudder-chains are taut and the breeze steady, there is no noise whatever. In the pretty saloon of the Hermione there was a singular absence of sound when Trist finished speaking. He turned again to the telegrams, neglecting his breakfast. Brenda thought that she had never experienced such an utter, breathless silence. Her ears seemed to tingle with the intensity of it, and in her brain there was a sudden vacuous sensation. She could think of nothing to say, although she strained her mind to discover some means of breaking this dreadful pause.
Furtively she raised her eyes, and at the same moment Trist looked across the table in a hurried, shifty way. Their eyes met for a brief agonizing second.
'I hope,' said Brenda sweetly, 'that your coffee is not very cold.'
'Oh no! Oh no, thank you! It is very nice,' he replied awkwardly, looking into the cup with absorbing interest.
Her question appeared to call him back from some vague, far-off dream, for he resolutely began to eat; while she hovered round, playing the hostess in a shy, constrained way. Presently he handed the open telegrams across the table to her.
'You may as well read them,' he said conversationally. 'They are very characteristic of the man who wrote them.'