"As things have turned out," said Reynold, "I think it would."
Poor little Barbara! If that angry, dark-eyed woman had known how near the fulfilment of her hopes had been, and lost by how pitiful a chance? But the secret was safe.
Kate Harding drew a long breath.
"Well, I have no more to say about it. Perhaps it is best that we should understand each other. You knew how your silence would wound me; it was deliberate—it was calculated. Well, it has wounded me, I don't deny it. But it is all over now, and you will never wound me again. Do what you please, now and always—as you have done."
He signified his attention sullenly, with a slight movement of his head.
"It is all over," she continued. "The situation is filled up, and nothing would ever induce Robert Harding to suffer you to enter his office—not if you offered to sweep it! He will not trouble you any more, and, since the matter is ended, let it never be mentioned between us again."
It was easy to see that she was, as she had said, deeply wounded, and there was a tragical intensity in her speech. Her son made answer with the same mute gesture of assent.
Presently she moved away, and for a few minutes she busied herself about the room. She gathered up the leaves she had cut off, put away two or three things that were lying about, and then came back to him.
"Dinner will be ready at the usual time," she said, in a cold, everyday voice. "And then we can talk——of other things."
"Yes," Reynold answered, with a start, looking up from his reverie. He had been thinking of the evening before. When he went into the little sitting-room after his walk, and Barbara rose up from the sofa to meet him, he had been startled, she was confused and frightened, and they had forgotten the ordinary greetings. And then they had talked, he had sat looking at her, he had stood up and held himself aloof—how had he done it? Well, it had been for Barbara's sake. Afterwards they had gone through Mitchelhurst together. Together? No, absurdly apart, with the breadth of the street between them. And at last they had talked at the gate, and he had vexed her, and she had hurried away without a word of farewell. It seemed to him now that he had never meant that. It was impossible he could have meant it. Why, they had never shaken hands, he had never touched her, and he remembered that she had no glove on, he had seen her hand in the moonlight on the latch of the gate. She had said, "Let us part friends," he had only to consent.