“I think I must have said so, the first evening. Since then nobody has thought of such details.”
He looked at her doubtfully, with some vagueness.
“Now I begin to recollect,” he said; “I was at Mimpriss’s, and walked along, because it was his way home, with—a man I met: and then—yes, I’m beginning to remember. In a little time I shall have it all clear.”
He fixed his eyes upon her again under the shelter of his hand. How they seemed to burn into her! She sat quite still, unnaturally still, with her eyes fixed upon her work. Oh, how they burned, those eyes! they seemed to make holes in her, to reach her heart. But this was as far as he had gone as yet. He was beginning to see her in the shops, on the pavement by his side—talking to him. Under the cover of his hand he kept asking her,
“What more? What more?”
“You don’t remember with whom it was you were walking?” said Gussy breathlessly.
“Hush, I’m thinking—it is coming, very vaguely, like a thing in the dark.”
“Janet, perhaps you saw what sort of man it was with whom Mr. Meredith was walking?”
“No,” said Janet. She was unable to form more than this one word: and she never looked at him, but stumbled on at her work, steadying her hands with a tremendous effort.
He saw well enough the perturbation in which she was, though none of the others might remark it; and she saw how he looked at her. Now the smile broke out again, more malicious than ever.