Still Seymour sat as before and went on smoking. As she was gazing at the fire she did not know for certain whether he was still looking at her or not.
At last she had finished the personal part of her narrative, though she had still to tell him how Beryl had taken it and what had happened that day. Before going on to that she paused for a moment. And immediately she heard Seymour move. He got up and went slowly to the table where the whisky and Perrier water had been placed by Murgatroyd. Then she looked at him. He stood with his back to her. She saw him bend down and pour out a glass of the water. Without turning he lifted the glass to his mouth and drank. Then he put the glass down; and then he stood for a moment quite still, always keeping his back towards her. She wondered what he was looking at. That was the question in her mind. “What can Seymour be looking at?”
At last he turned round. She thought that his face looked unusually stern, and his bushy eyebrows seemed—so she fancied—to be drawn down low above his eyes.
“Go on—my dear,” he said in a rather gruff and very low voice.
She quivered. She, perhaps, scarcely knew why. At the moment she really believed that she did not know why. Suddenly emotion began to gain on her. But she struggled resolutely against it.
“Aren’t you—don’t you mean to sit down again?” she said.
“No. I think I’ll stand.”
And he came slowly to stand by the fire.
“Well,” she began again, making a great effort, “I thought that was all. I didn’t think there was anything more for me to do. But Beryl came back again to-night and begged me to help her. She is terrified of what he may do. I tried to reassure her. But it was no good.”
And again she narrated, now with difficulty forcing herself to seem calm and unembarrassed, exactly what had happened that day between Beryl Van Tuyn and herself, till she came to the moment when she had turned away from Beryl and had gone to stand by the fire. Then once more she paused and seemed seized by hesitation. As Sir Seymour said nothing, did not help her out, at last she went on: