It was an impulse not wholly consistent with the self-reliance of her ordinary manner; but that manner had been acquired in a world where shocks and difficulties were more or less disbelieved in. Face to face with so unconventional a condition of affairs Mrs. Romayne’s conventional instincts were necessarily at fault; and there being no strong motive power in her to supply their place, it was only natural that she should relieve herself by turning to the man on whom the past few days had taught her to rely.
Dennis Falconer was not in the sitting-room when she opened the door, but as she stood in the doorway contemplating the empty room, he came down the corridor behind her.
“Were you looking for me?” he said with distant courtesy as he reached her. He made a movement to relieve her of the box she carried, and as he did so he was struck by her expression. “Is there anything here you wish me to see?” he said quickly and gravely.
“Yes,” she said; she spoke in a dry, hard voice, about which there was a ring of excitement which made him look at her again, and realise vaguely that something was wrong.
He followed her into the room, and she motioned to him to put the box on the table.
“I have been looking them over,” she said, indicating the papers with a gesture, “and I have brought them to you. They are very interesting.”
She laughed a bitter, crackling little laugh, and the disapproval in ambush in Dennis Falconer’s expression developed a little.
“Do you wish me to go over them now, and with you?” he enquired stiffly.
“Not with me, I think, thank you,” she answered, the novel excitement about her manner finding expression once more in that harsh laugh. “One reading is enough. But now, if you don’t mind. There are business points on which I may possibly be mistaken”—she did not look as though she spoke from conviction—“and—I should like you to read them. I will go out into the garden; it is quite empty always at this time, and I want some air.”
Her tone and the glance she cast at the despatch-box as she spoke made it evident that it was not closeness of material atmosphere alone that had created the necessity.