"I thought that my opinion was of so little importance," he answered sulkily, "that I might as well go."
But he sat down again and buried himself in his paper.
They waited, and Robin made mental comparisons with a similar scene a week before; there were still the silver teapot, the toast, the ham—they were all there, and it was only he himself who had altered. Only a week, and what a difference! What a cad he had been! a howling cad! Not only to his father, but to Dahlia, to every one with whom he had had to do. He did not spare himself; he had at least the pluck to go through with it—that was Trojan.
At Harry's entrance there was an involuntary raising of eyebrows to see, if possible, how he took it; it being his own immediate succession rather than his father's death. He was grave, of course, but there was a light in his eyes that Clare could not understand. Had he some premonition of her request? He apologised for being late.
"I have been up most of the night. There is no immediate danger of a change, but we ought, I think, to be ready. Yes, the toast, Robin, please—I hope you've slept all right, Clare?"
How quickly he had picked up the manner, she reflected, as she watched him! But of course that was natural enough; once a Trojan, always a Trojan, and no amount of colonies will do away with it. But three weeks was a short time for so vast a change.
"No, Harry, not very well—of course, it weighs on one rather."
She sighed and rose from the breakfast-table; she looked terribly tired and Harry was suddenly sorry for her, and, for the first time since the night of his return, felt that they were brother and sister; but after the adventure of the early morning it was as though he were related to the whole world—Love and Death had drawn close to him, and, with the sound of the beating of their wings, the world had revealed things to him that had, in other days, been secrets. Love and Death were such big things that his personal relations with Clare, with Garrett, even with Robin, had assumed their true proportion.
"Clare, you're tired!" he said. "I should go and lie down again. You shall be told if anything happens."
"No, thanks, Harry. I wanted to ask you something—but, perhaps, first I ought to apologise for some of the things that I said the other day. I said more than I meant to. I am sorry—but one forgets at times that one has no right to meddle in other people's affairs. But now I—we—all of us—want to ask you a favour——"