"We can pretend to want coffee, or something of the sort," he said. "No one will disturb us."
She looked across and smiled at him with a fleeting radiance. Oh, that English voice, that English face! Laughter of relief and thankfulness fought with the tears that had so long lain checked, and now struggled for release beneath the touch of a friend's unspoken sympathy.
"Nora, what is wrong?" he went on. "Why wouldn't you see me? Have I offended you in any way?"
"Offended me!" She laughed brokenly. "Do I look offended, Robert? Don't you know I could have danced for joy when I saw you coming?"
Reckless Nora! Her words, spoken in a moment of relief from an agonising pressure, had not the meaning which he believed he read out of them. Something was not any longer so selfless, so resigned, flashed into his steady grey eyes.
"Then what is it, Nora? Tell me everything. You know you have promised me your friendship."
She did not hesitate an instant. Those three hours beneath the enemy's fire had driven her to exasperation, to that point of hysterical nervousness from which most feminine folly is committed.
"They forbade my seeing you," she said—"not in words; but they said things which left me no choice. They said I was bringing disgrace upon my husband, and upon his name——"
"Nora! Who said that?"
"Frau von Arnim. She hates me. And Wolff said much the same. They can't understand a straight, honest friendship between a man and a woman."