She turned quickly toward the table.
“John has everything ready,” she said, now quite as formal as he. “We may as well sit right down.”
4
For a time they barely spoke. John had lighted the native lamp, and it flickered gloomily in the swiftly gathering darkness, throwing a huge shadow of him on the walls, and even on the ceiling, as he moved softly in his padded shoes about the table and in and out at the door.
Betty's mood had sunk, now at last, into the unreal. She seemed to be living through a dream of nightmare quality—something she had—it was elusive, haunting—lived through before. She saw Jonathan Brachey distantly, as she had seen him at first, so bewilderingly long ago on a ship in the Inland Sea of Japan. She saw again his long bony nose, coldly reflective eyes, firmly modeled head.... And he was talking, when he spoke at all, as he had talked on the occasion of their first meeting, slowly, in somewhat stilted language, pausing interminably while he hunted about in his amazing mind for the word or phrase that would precisely express his meaning.
“There is a village a short distance this side of Ping Yang, Mr. Po tells me”... here a pause... “not an important place. Ordinarily we should pass through it about noon of the day after to-morrow. But he has picked up word that a Looker band has been organized there, and he thinks it may be best for us to...” and here a pause so long as to become nearly unbearable to Betty. For a time she moved her fork idly about her plate, waiting for that next word. At length she gave up, folded her hands in her lap, tried to compose her nerves. After that she glanced timidly at him, then looked up at the waveing shadows on the dim veils. It was almost as if he had forgotten she was there. He was interested, apparently, in nothing in life except those words he sought: “... to make a detour to the south.”
Betty drew in a deep breath. She felt her color coming slowly back. The 'best thing to do, she decided, was to go on trying to eat. He had been right enough about that. She must try. It was, in a way, her part of it; to keep strong. Or she would be more hopelessly than ever fastened on him.... It seemed to her as never before a dreadful thing to be a woman. Tears came again, and she fought them back, even managed actually to eat a little. “It will mean still another....”
“Another what?” She waited and waited.
“Another night on the road, after tomorrow. I am sorry.”