“Oh, no,” he replied. And he sat down by the table, leaning slightly forward with his arms upon it.
“Do you mind my coming here?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” said Antony reflectively.
A gleam of a smile flashed across the Duchessa’s face. The reply was so Antonian.
There was quite a long silence. Suddenly Antony roused himself.
“You’ll let me get you some tea, Madam,” he said.
Awaiting no reply, he went into the little scullery, where the fire by which he had cooked his midday meal was still alight. The kettle filled with water and placed on the stove, he stood by it, in a measure wishful, yet oddly reluctant to return to the parlour. Reluctance won the day. He remained by the kettle, gazing at it.
Left alone, the Duchessa looked round the parlour. It was exceedingly primitive, yet, to her mind, curiously interesting. Of course in reality it was not unlike dozens of other cottage parlours, but it held a personality of its own for her. It was the room where Antony Gray lived.
She pictured him at his lonely meals, sitting at the table where he had sat a moment or so agone; sitting on the settle where she was now sitting, certainly smoking, and possibly reading. She found herself wondering what he thought about. Did he ever think of the Fort Salisbury, she wondered? Or had he blotted it from his mind, as she had endeavoured—ineffectually—to do? And then, with that thought, with the possibility that he had done so, her presence in the room seemed quite suddenly an intrusion. What on earth would he think of her for coming? And what on earth did she mean to say to him now she had come?
The impulse which had led her down the lane, which had caused her to pause at the gate and speak to him, all at once seemed to her perfectly idiotic, and, worse still, intrusive and impertinent. What possible excuse was she going to give for it, in the face of her behaviour to him that afternoon on the moorland? Merely to have asked for shelter on account of the heat, appeared to her now as the flimsiest of excuses, and would appear to him as an excuse simply to pry upon him, to see his mode of living. He had not returned to the parlour. Doubtless his absence was a silent rebuke to her. She had thrust the necessity of hospitality upon him, but he intended to show her plainly that it was entirely of necessity he had offered it.