"There is no reason. Only I thought you might not wish it."
"Your friends are my friends," he answered gravely.
And then the door opened a second time, and Robert Arnold stood on the threshold.
CHAPTER IX
ARNOLD RECEIVES HIS EXPLANATION
A great physical change had come over him in the few months of his absence. He was pale and gaunt-looking, as though he had but lately risen from a serious illness, and his eyes, which fell at once on Nora's face, were hollow and heavily underlined.
Nora noticed these details with the sort of mechanical minuteness of a mind too stunned to grasp the full magnitude of the situation. One side of her intellect kept on repeating: "Why has he come? Why has he come?" whilst the other was engrossed in a trivial catalogue of the changes in his appearance. "He stoops more—he is thinner," she thought, but she could not rouse herself to action. Arnold, indeed, gave her little opportunity. After the first moment's hesitation he advanced and held out his hand.
"I ought to have let you know of my coming, Nora," he said, "but I could not wait. I have just arrived in Berlin, and of course my first visit had to be to you. I hope I have not chosen an inconvenient time?"
He was trying to speak conventionally, and was successful, insomuch that Nora understood that she had at present nothing to fear from him. Not that she felt any fear now that the first shock was over. It was with a certain dignity and resolution that she looked from one man to the other.
"This is my husband, Robert," she said, "and this, Wolff, is my old playfellow, Captain Arnold."