Heyst, taking his hat off in the doorway, entered the room.
CHAPTER FIVE
Waking up suddenly, Lena looked, without raising her head from the pillow, at the room in which she was alone. She got up quickly, as if to counteract the awful sinking of her heart by the vigorous use of her limbs. But this sinking was only momentary. Mistress of herself from pride, from love, from necessity, and also because of a woman's vanity in self-sacrifice, she met Heyst, returning from the strangers' bungalow, with a clear glance and a smile.
The smile he managed to answer, but, noticing that he avoided her eyes, she composed her lips and lowered her gaze. For the same reason she hastened to speak to him in a tone of indifference, which she put on without effort, as if she had grown adept in duplicity since sunrise.
“You have been over there again?”
“I have. I thought—but you had better know first that we have lost Wang for good.”
She repeated “For good?” as if she had not understood.
“For good or evil—I shouldn't know which if you were to ask me. He has dismissed himself. He's gone.”
“You expected him to go, though, didn't you?”