Opposite to her, her husband stretched his ungainly length in a deck-chair, and turned over a pile of official notes. Every now and then her eyes wandered from the gay silks of the table-cover she was embroidering to the canvas walls which bounded the narrow space into which their few household goods were crowded. Outside there was a deep hush. The silence of the vast empty plain seemed to work its way slowly, steadily in, towards the little patch of light set in its midst. The girl felt it in every nerve; it was as though some soft-footed, noiseless, shapeless creature, whose presence she only dimly divined, was approaching nearer—nearer. The heavy outer stillness was in some way made more terrifying by the rustle of the papers her husband was reading, by the creaking of his chair as he moved, and by the little fidgeting grunts and half exclamations which from time to time broke from him. His wife's hand shook at every unintelligible mutter from him, and the slight habitual contraction between her eyes deepened.
All at once she threw her work down on to the table. “For Heaven's sake——please, John, talk!” she cried. Her eyes, for the moment's space in which they met the startled ones of her husband, had a wild hunted look, but it was gone almost before his slow brain had time to note that it had been there—and was vaguely disturbing. She laughed a little, unsteadily.
“Did I startle you? I'm sorry. I——” she laughed again. “I believe I'm a little nervous. When one is all day alone——” She paused without finishing the sentence. The man's face changed suddenly. A wave of tenderness swept over it, and at the same time an expression of half-incredulous delight shone in his pale eyes.
“Poor little girl, are you really lonely?” he said. Even the real feeling in his tone failed to rob his voice of its peculiarly irritating grating quality. He rose awkwardly and moved to his wife's side.
Involuntarily she shrank a little, and the hand which he had stretched out to touch her hair sank to his side. She recovered herself immediately and turned her face up to his, though she did not raise her eyes; but he did not kiss her. Instead, he stood in an embarrassed fashion a moment by her side, and then went back to his seat.
There was silence again for some time. The man lay back in his chair, gazing at his big clumsy shoes, as though he hoped for some inspiration from that quarter, while his wife worked with nervous haste.
“Don't let me keep you from reading, John,” she said, and her voice had regained its usual gentle tone.
“No, my dear; I'm just thinking of something to say to you, but I don't seem——”
She smiled a little. In spite of herself, her lip curled faintly. “Don't worry about it—it was stupid of me to expect it. I mean——” she added hastily, immediately repenting the sarcasm. She glanced furtively at him, but his face was quite unmoved. Evidently he had not noticed it, and she smiled faintly again.
“Oh, Kathie, I knew there was something I'd forgotten to tell you, my dear; there's a man coming down here. I don't know whether——”