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Updated: May 23, 2025
Eve," he exclaimed, suddenly, "I'm trying to do this for you. Don't you see? Don't you understand? The easy course, the happy course, would be to let things drift. Every instinct is calling to me to take that course to go on as I have gone, trading on Chilcote's weakness and your generosity. But I won't do it! I can't do it!" With a swift impulse he loosed his arms and held her away from him.
Whatever the confusion in his mind, it was evidently not obvious in his face. Rayforth resumed his seat, there was the usual slight stir and pause, then Salett, the member for Salchester, rose. With Salett's first words Chilcote's hand again sought his pocket, and again his eyes strayed towards the doors, but Fraide's erect head and stiff back just in front of him held him quiet.
But if this was so, it escaped the notice of the one person concerned; for it was long after tea had been served, long after Eve had offered to do penance for her monopoly of him by driving him to Chilcote's club, that Loder realized with any degree of distinctness that it was she and not he who had taken the lead in their interview; that it was she and not he who had bridged the difficult silences and given a fresh direction to dangerous channels of talk.
Remembering their last passionate scene, and the damper Chilcote's subsequent presence must inevitably have cast upon it, he had expected to be doubtfully received; but the reality of the reception left him bewildered.
Loder, sitting rigidly in Chilcote's place, watched with suppressed inquiry the faces of the men who entered through the constantly swinging doors; but not one face, so eagerly scanned, carried the message for which he waited. Monotonously and mechanically the time passed.
But Loder dismissed him curtly; and with something of the confusion bred of Chilcote's regime, the man drew back towards the staircase. With a hasty movement Loder stepped forward, and, opening the door, admitted a breath of chill air. Then on the threshold he paused. It was his first sign of hesitation the one instant in which nature rebelled against the conscience so tardily awakened.
He breakfasted alone, following Chilcote's habit, and after breakfast found his way to the study. As he entered, Greening rose with the same conciliatory haste that he had shown the night before. Loder nodded to him. "Early at work?" he said, pleasantly. The little man showed instant, almost ridiculous relief. "Good-morning, sir," he said; "you too are early.
In all the years of her marriage, in the months of her courtship even, she had never surprised the look on Chilcote's face. The impression came quickly. and with it a strange, warm rush of interest that receded slowly, leaving an odd sense of loneliness. But, at the moment that the feeling came and passed, her attention was claimed in another direction.
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. Loder, engrossed in the check to his own schemes, incensed at the suddenness of Chilcote's recall, and still more incensed at his own folly in not having anticipated it, was oblivious for the moment of both her movement and her words.
Chilcote's manner of walking and poise of the head seemed to have descended upon him with Chilcote's clothes. He came into the room hastily and passed to the desk. "I have no private papers," he said, "so I have nothing to lock up. Everything can stand as it is. A woman named Robins comes in the mornings to clean up and light the fire; otherwise you must shift for yourself.
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