She was quite close to him.  He would have been less than man had he been unconscious of the subtle contact of her glance, the nearness of her presence—­and no one had ever hinted that manhood was lacking in him.  It was a moment of temptation.  His own energy, his own intentions, seemed so near; Chilcote and Chilcote’s claims so distant and unreal.  After all, his life, his ambitions, his determinations, were his own.  He lifted his eyes and looked at her.

“You want me to tell you that I will go on?” he said.

Her eyes brightened; she took a step forward.  “Yes,” she said, “I want it more than anything in the world.”

There was a wait.  The declaration that would satisfy her came to Loder’s lips, but he delayed it.  The delay, was fateful.  While he stood silent the door opened and the servant who had brought in the tea reappeared.

He crossed the room and handed Loder a telegram.  “Any answer, sir?” he said.

Eve moved back to her chair.  There was a flush on her cheeks and her eyes were still alertly bright.

Loder tore the telegram open, read it, then threw it Into the fire.

“No answer!” he said, laconically.

At the brusqueness of his voice, Eve looked up.  “Disagreeable news?” she said, as the servant departed.

He didn’t look at her.  He was watching the telegram withering in the centre of the fire.

“No,” he said at last, in a strained voice.  “No.  Only news that I—­that I had forgotten to expect.”

XI

There was a silence—­an uneasy break—­after Loder spoke.  The episode of the telegram was, to all appearances, ordinary enough, calling forth Eve’s question and his own reply as a natural sequence; yet in the pause that followed it each was conscious of a jar, each was aware that in some subtle way the thread of sympathy had been dropped, though to one the cause was inexplicable and to the other only too plain.

Loder watched the ghost of his message grow whiter and thinner, then dissolve into airy fragments and flutter up the chimney.  As the last morsel wavered out of sight, he turned and looked at his companion.

“You almost made me commit myself,” he said.  In the desire to hide his feelings his tone was short.

Eve returned his glance with a quiet regard, but he scarcely saw it.  He had a stupefied sense of disaster; a feeling of bitter self-commiseration that for the moment outweighed all other considerations.  Almost at the moment of justification the good of life had crumbled in his fingers, the soil given beneath his feet, and with an absence of logic, a lack of justice unusual in him, he let resentment against Chilcote sweep suddenly over his mind.

Eve, still watching him, saw the darkening of his expression, and with a quiet movement rose from her chair.

“Lady Sarah has a theatre-party to-night, and I am dining with her,” she said.  “It is an early dinner, so I must think about dressing.  I’m sorry you think I tried to draw you into anything.  I must have explained myself badly.”  She laughed a little, to cover the slight discomfiture that her tone betrayed, and as she laughed she moved across the room towards the door.