"This is an old friend of mine, Susan," he said sedately. Julia presented a pale face and shining eyes.
"Mrs. Hill must be quite accustomed to the enthusiasm of your friends," she said. "I have been lingering at St. Pancras since three o'clock,—somebody told me you had been seen in a restaurant—for the sake of travelling back with you."
"How good of you," said Barnaby, in the same constrained way. "We didn't know, did we, Susan, that we had been spotted?"
Julia turned to him again; her speaking eyes hardly left him.—"Not good," she said, "only human."
The train rocked on, filling the inevitable pause with its throbbing. Then Barnaby's voice cut into the silence.
"We don't mind indulging your human curiosity, Julia," he said, "but why stare at us so hard? We, too, are only human, aren't we, Susan?"
"It is so strange," said Julia, "to think of you with a wife."
Barnaby bit his lip. He reddened. Perhaps the sight of her had shaken him, had hit him deeper than he was willing to betray. Her emotion at meeting the man whom she had mourned as dead was visible; she made no attempt to hide it. Perhaps his own was the greater for being stifled by his determined effort at self-control. He got up, fiddling with the window-sash.
"Would you like this a bit down?" he said. "How is your headache?"
Did he know that her head ached, or had he addressed her at random? The girl felt an unreasonable anger at his ostentatious solicitude. Was he playing her off against his old love? Did such bitterness wait behind their compact? For the first time, his kindness hurt her. All a farce, all a blind, and a make-believe....