Claude went with him into the lobby and shut the sitting-room door behind them. She heard their voices talking, but could not hear any words. The voices continued for what seemed to her a long while. She moved about the room, saw Alston's red roses where she had laid them down when she came in from the theater, and the vase full of water which the German waiter had brought. And she began to put the flowers in the water, lifting them carefully and slowly one by one. They had very long stems and all their leaves. She arranged them with apparent sensitiveness. But she was scarcely conscious of what she was doing. When all the roses were in the vase she did not know what else to do. And she stood still listening to the murmur of those voices. At last it ceased. She heard a door shut. Then the sitting-room door opened, and Claude came in.
"What a lot you had to say to each—" she began.
She stopped. Claude's face had stopped her.
"Shall I ring for the waiter to clear away?" she said falteringly, after a moment of silence.
"He came when Alston and I were in the lobby. I told him to leave it all till to-morrow. Do you mind?"
"No."
Claude shut the door. His eyes still held the intensity, the blazing expression which had stopped the words on her lips. Always Claude's face was expressive. She remembered how forcibly she had been struck by that fact when she walked airily into Max Elliot's music-room. But she had never before seen him look as he was looking now. She felt frightened of him, and almost frightened of herself.
"I had something to say to Alston," Claude said, coming up to her. "I don't think I could have rested to-night unless I had said it. I'm sure I couldn't."
"You were telling him again how splendidly—"
"No. He knew what I thought of his work. I told him that before supper. I had to tell him something else—what I thought of my own."