“Has anything happened?” cried Susie.
His manner was curiously distressing, and there was a nervousness about his movements that was very unexpected in so restrained a person.
“I’ve seen Margaret again,” he said.
“Well?”
He seemed unable to go on, and yet both knew that he had something important to tell them. He looked at them vacantly, as though all he had to say was suddenly gone out of his mind.
“I’ve come straight here,” he said, in a dull, bewildered fashion. “I went to your hotel, Susie, in the hope of finding you; but when they told me you were out, I felt certain you would be here.”
“You seem worn out, cher ami,” said Dr Porhoët, looking at him. “Will you let Matilde make you a cup of coffee?”
“I should like something,” he answered, with a look of utter weariness.
“Sit still for a minute or two, and you shall tell us what you want to when you are a little rested.”
Dr Porhoët had not seen Arthur since that afternoon in the previous year when, in answer to Haddo’s telegram, he had gone to the studio in the Rue Campagne Première. He watched him anxiously while Arthur drank his coffee. The change in him was extraordinary; there was a cadaverous exhaustion about his face, and his eyes were sunken in their sockets. But what alarmed the good doctor most was that Arthur’s personality seemed thoroughly thrown out of gear. All that he had endured during these nine months had robbed him of the strength of purpose, the matter-of-fact sureness, which had distinguished him. He was now unbalanced and neurotic.