'Didn't I? It seems hardly worth while telling such things, from such a distance. Will you have supper at once?'
He drew up to the table, and she fed him and hovered round him, asking the while about his work, in a rather perfunctory way, about his rooms and the price of them, inquiring after the state of his clothes. But her tone and manner were unlike herself, and there was in his mind a protesting consciousness that she had not welcomed him as a young wife should after a long separation. Her manner too was extraordinarily nervous; her hand shook as she touched a plate; her movements were full of starts, and checks, as though, often, she intended a thing and then forgot it.
They avoided talking about money, and he did not mention the name of Madame de Pastourelles; though of course his letters had reported the external history of the portrait. But Phoebe presently inquired after it.
'Have you nearly done painting that lady, John?—I don't know how to say her name.'
As she spoke, she lifted a bit of bread-and-butter to her mouth and put it down untasted. In the same way she had tried to drink some tea, and had not apparently succeeded. Fenwick rose and went over to her.
'Look here, Phoebe,' he said, putting his hand on her beautiful hair and turning her face to him—'what's the matter?'
Her eyelids closed, and a quiver went through the face.
'I don't know. I—I had a fright a few days ago—at night—and I suppose I haven't got over it.'
'A fright?'
'Yes. There was a tramp one night came to the door. I half-opened it—and his face was so horrible I tried to shut it again at once. And he struggled with me, but I was strongest. Then he tried to get in at the window, but luckily I had fastened the iron bar across the shutter—and the back door. But it all held, mercifully. He couldn't get in. Then he abused me through the door, and said he would have killed me and the child, if he could have got in—and some day he would come again.' She shuddered.