Anna sat silent, listening to her small stiff steps as they minced down the hall and died out in the distance. Madame de Chantelle had broken her wooden embroidery frame, and Darrow, having offered to repair it, had drawn his chair up to a table that held a lamp. Anna watched him as he sat with bent head and knitted brows, trying to fit together the disjoined pieces. The sight of him, so tranquilly absorbed in this trifling business, seemed to give to the quiet room a perfume of intimacy, to fill it with a sense of sweet familiar habit; and it came over her again that she knew nothing of the inner thoughts of this man who was sitting by her as a husband might. The lamplight fell on his white forehead, on the healthy brown of his cheek, the backs of his thin sunburnt hands. As she watched the hands her sense of them became as vivid as a touch, and she said to herself: “That other woman has sat and watched him as I am doing. She has known him as I have never known him…Perhaps he is thinking of that now. Or perhaps he has forgotten it all as completely as I have forgotten everything that happened to me before he came…”
He looked young, active, stored with strength and energy; not the man for vain repinings or long memories. She wondered what she had to hold or satisfy him. He loved her now; she had no doubt of that; but how could she hope to keep him? They were so nearly of an age that already she felt herself his senior. As yet the difference was not visible; outwardly at least they were matched; but ill- health or unhappiness would soon do away with this equality. She thought with a pang of bitterness: “He won’t grow any older because he doesn’t feel things; and because he doesn’t, I shall…”
And when she ceased to please him, what then? Had he the tradition of faith to the spoken vow, or the deeper piety of the unspoken dedication? What was his theory, what his inner conviction in such matters? But what did she care for his convictions or his theories? No doubt he loved her now, and believed he would always go on loving her, and was persuaded that, if he ceased to, his loyalty would be proof against the change. What she wanted to know was not what he thought about it in advance, but what would impel or restrain him at the crucial hour. She put no faith in her own arts: she was too sure of having none! And if some beneficent enchanter had bestowed them on her, she knew now that she would have rejected the gift. She could hardly conceive of wanting the kind of love that was a state one could be cozened into…
Darrow, putting away the frame, walked across the room and sat down beside her; and she felt he had something special to say.
“They’re sure to send for me in a day or two now,” he began.
She made no answer, and he continued: “You’ll tell me before I go what day I’m to come back and get you?”
It was the first time since his return to Givre that he had made any direct allusion to the date of their marriage; and instead of answering him she broke out: “There’s something I’ve been wanting you to know. The other day in Paris I saw Miss Viner.”
She saw him flush with the intensity of his surprise.
“You sent for her?”
“No; she heard from Adelaide that I was in Paris and she came. She came because she wanted to urge me to marry you. I thought you ought to know what she had done.”
Darrow stood up. “I’m glad you’ve told me.” He spoke with a visible effort at composure. Her eyes followed him as he moved away.
“Is that all?” he asked after an interval.
“It seems to me a great deal.”
“It’s what she’d already asked me.” His voice showed her how deeply he was moved, and a throb of jealousy shot through her.
“Oh, it was for your sake, I know!” He made no answer, and she added: “She’s been exceedingly generous…Why shouldn’t we speak of it?”