"Was the particular letter I mentioned one of them?"
He answered unwillingly.
"No. I searched everywhere. I don't believe I have it."
She shook her head with decision.
"You certainly have it. Please look again."
He broke out with some irritation, insisting that if it had not been returned it had been either lost or destroyed. It could matter to no one.
Some snaring, entangling instinct—an instinct of the hunter—made her persist. She must have it. It was a point of honour. "Poor Theresa is so unhappy, so pursued! You saw that odious paragraph last week? I can't run the risk!"
With a groan of annoyance, he promised at last that he would look again. Then the sparkling eyes changed, the voice softened.
She praised—she rewarded him. By smooth transitions she slipped into ordinary talk; of his candidature for the County Council—the points of the great horse he rode—the gossip of the neighbourhood—the charms of Beatty.
And on this last topic he, too, suddenly found his tongue. The cloud—of awkwardness, or of something else not to be analyzed—broke away, and he began to talk, and presently to ask questions, with readiness, even with eagerness.