"I've no news, Henry," she said. "Have you?" She closed the door behind her before moving closer to him. She had not known what he had been doing, since he had heard of Alan's telegram; but she had supposed that he was in some way coöperating with her father, particularly since word had come of the disaster to the ferry.
"How did you happen to be here, Connie?" he asked.
She made no reply but gazed at him, studying him. The agitation which he was trying to conceal was not entirely consequent to her coming in upon him; it had been ruling him before. It had underlain the loudness and abuse of his words which she had overheard. That was no capricious outburst of temper or irritation; it had come from something which had seized and held him in suspense, in dread—in dread; there was no other way to define her impression to herself. When she had opened the door and come in, he had looked up in dread, as though preparing himself for whatever she might announce. Now that the door shut them in alone, he approached her with arms offered. She stepped back, instinctively avoiding his embrace; and he stopped at once, but he had come quite close to her now.
That she had detected faintly the smell of liquor
about him was not the whole reason for her drawing back. He was not drunk; he was quite himself so far as any influence of that kind was concerned. Long ago, when he was a young man on the boats, he had drunk a good deal; he had confessed to her once; but he had not done so for years. Since she had known him, he had been among the most careful of her friends; it was for "efficiency" he had said. The drink was simply a part—indeed, only a small part—of the subtle strangeness and peculiarity she marked in him. If he had been drinking now, it was, she knew, no temptation, no capricious return to an old appetite. If not appetite, then it was for the effect—to brace himself. Against what? Against the thing for which he had prepared himself when she came upon him?
As she stared at him, the clerk's voice came to her suddenly over the partition which separated the office from the larger room where the clerk was receiving some message over the telephone. Henry straightened, listened; as the voice stopped, his great, finely shaped head sank between his shoulders; he fumbled in his pocket for a cigar, and his big hands shook as he lighted it, without word of excuse to her. A strange feeling came to her that he felt what he dreaded approaching and was no longer conscious of her presence.
She heard footsteps in the larger room coming toward the office door. Henry was in suspense. A rap came at the door. He whitened and took the cigar from his mouth and wet his lips.
"Come in," he summoned.
One of the office girls entered, bringing a white page of paper with three or four lines of purple typewriting upon it which Constance recognized must be a transcript of a message just received.
She started forward at sight of it, forgetting everything else; but he took the paper as though he did not know she was there. He merely held it until the girl had gone out; even then he stood folding and unfolding it, and his eyes did not drop to the sheet.