His community of sympathy with the other, who was still, in a measure, himself, was inexplicable; for obviously Howat had escaped Jasper’s blundering—­an early marriage, a son, the son whose name, like his mother’s, made such an exotic note in a long, sound succession of Isabels and Carolines and Gilberts, was a far different tale from his own.  Yet it persisted.  It seemed to him that the silence of the room grew strained, there was the peculiar tension of a muteness desperately striving for utterance.  He waited, listened, in a rigidity of which he was suddenly ashamed; ridiculous.  He relaxed; the memory of his own youth flooded back, rapt him in visions, scents, sounds.  The premonitory whirring of the clock spring sounded once more, followed by the slow, increasing strokes ...  Again.  His body wavered, on the verge of sleep, and he straightened himself sharply; then he rose and, putting back the Forgebook, undressed.

Susan, at breakfast, her shoulders wrapped in a serious-toned pelerine, said little.  Jasper Penny instinctively excluded her from a trivial conversation.  She was, he decided, paler than usual, the shadows under her eyes were indigo.  He was filled with self-condemnation.  Mrs. Penny, gazing at her with a beady discernment, asked if her rest had been interrupted.  “I am always an indifferent sleeper,” Susan Brundon replied evasively.  He followed her into the carriage that was to take her to the station at Jaffa; and, ignoring her slight gasp of protest, grasped the reins held by the negro coachman.  However, they proceeded over the short distance to the town without speech.  He was torn between a wish to spare her and the desire to urge his own purpose.  But more immediately he wanted to make secure the near hour of his seeing her again.  He asked, finally, “Will you be at the Jannans’ this week, or are visitors received at the Academy?”

“No,” she replied to the first; “and I have very little time between classes.  You see, they fill the whole day, tasks and pleasures.  It is difficult for me to—­to talk on a generality of themes with callers.”

“I have no intention of being diffuse,” he replied pointedly.  “I could confine my entire conversation to one request—­”

“Please,” she interrupted pitiably.  “I am utterly wretched now.  The simplest gentility—­” she paused, but her wish was clear.  He restrained himself with difficulty.  Drifting slowly across the scattered roofs of the town was the leaden smoke of his mills and fires; as they drove into the main street the thin crash of his iron was audible.  Men everywhere bowed to him with marked respect.  But the woman at his side sat erect, drawn away from him, unmoved by all that, to the world, he was.  There was an appalling quality in her aloofness from what, materially, he might advance in extenuation; the things so generally potent here were no more than slag.  He searched within for what might bend, influence, her, for whatever