Drayton raised his eyes from his plate with a smile of total incomprehension.
“Great Heavens! What an Adam to select!” thought Broomhurst involuntarily, as Mrs. Drayton rose rather suddenly from the table.
“I'll come and help with that packing-case,” John said, rising, in his turn, lumberingly from his place; “then we can have a smoke—eh? Kathie don't mind, if we sit near the entrance.”
The two men went out together, Broomhurst holding the lantern, for the moon had not yet risen. Mrs. Drayton followed them to the doorway, and, pushing the looped-up hanging further aside, stepped out into the cool darkness.
Her heart was beating quickly, and there was a great lump in her throat that frightened her as though she were choking.
“And I am his wife—I belong to him!” she cried, almost aloud.
She pressed both her hands tightly against her breast, and set her teeth, fighting to keep down the rising flood that threatened to sweep away her composure. “Oh, what a fool I am! What an hysterical fool of a woman I am!” she whispered below her breath. She began to walk slowly up and down outside the tent, in the space illumined by the lamplight, as though striving to make her outwardly quiet movements react upon the inward tumult. In a little while she had conquered; she quietly entered the tent, drew a low chair to the entrance, and took up a book, just as footsteps became audible. A moment afterwards Broomhurst emerged from the darkness into the circle of light outside, and Mrs. Drayton raised her eyes from the pages she was turning to greet him with a smile.
“Are your things all right?”
“Oh yes, more or less, thank you. I was a little concerned about a case of books, but it isn't much damaged fortunately. Perhaps I've some you would care to look at?”
“The books will be a godsend,” she returned with a sudden brightening of the eyes; “I was getting desperate—for books.”