He was, however, suddenly startled into doubt by Eleanor's reception of him in the little ante-room. He had expected to find her as confident and self-reliant as he was himself. He had hoped that their half-hour's talk would be all of their own delightful future. He found her anxious, trembling, on the verge of tears.
"Sit down," she said, when Arthur came in. "I want to talk to you first. It's quite safe. He's in the office, and in any case you can't hear what's said from the next room."
But after he had obeyed her, she could not come at once to what she had to say. She turned her back on him and began to arrange some papers on a side table, standing, he thought, less erectly than she usually stood. And when she faced him, there was in her expression the reluctance of one who has to admit defeat.
"Do you think, after all, that we had better go?" she asked.
He was too astonished to reply directly. He got up and took a step towards her. "Why? What's the matter?" he said.
She backed away from him and held up her hands, as if to defend herself.
"There's no reason why you shouldn't go—alone," she said.
"Go alone?" he repeated in a voice of such dismay that any repetition of that suggestion would have been ridiculous.
"Very well," she continued, soothing him with a faint smile. "If that's quite out of the question, is it possible that we might both stay?"
"Indefinitely?"