A minute later Owen Leath was at his side. “I was sure it was you! Such luck to run across you! Won’t you come off with us to supper after it’s over? Montmartre, or wherever else you please. Those two chaps over there are friends of mine, at the Beaux Arts; both of them rather good fellows– and we’d be so glad—-”
For half a second Darrow read in his hospitable eye the termination “if you’d bring the lady too”; then it deflected into: “We’d all be so glad if you’d come.”
Darrow, excusing himself with thanks, lingered on for a few minutes’ chat, in which every word, and every tone of his companion’s voice, was like a sharp light flashed into aching eyes. He was glad when the bell called the audience to their seats, and young Leath left him with the friendly question: “We’ll see you at Givre later on?”
When he rejoined Miss Viner, Darrow’s first care was to find out, by a rapid inspection of the house, whether Owen Leath’s seat had given him a view of their box. But the young man was not visible from it, and Darrow concluded that he had been recognized in the corridor and not at his companion’s side. He scarcely knew why it seemed to him so important that this point should be settled; certainly his sense of reassurance was less due to regard for Miss Viner than to the persistent vision of grave offended eyes…
During the drive back to the hotel this vision was persistently kept before him by the thought that the evening post might have brought a letter from Mrs. Leath. Even if no letter had yet come, his servant might have telegraphed to say that one was on its way; and at the thought his interest in the girl at his side again cooled to the fraternal, the almost fatherly. She was no more to him, after all, than an appealing young creature to whom it was mildly agreeable to have offered an evening’s diversion; and when, as they rolled into the illuminated court of the hotel, she turned with a quick movement which brought her happy face close to his, he leaned away, affecting to be absorbed in opening the door of the cab.
At the desk the night porter, after a vain search through the pigeon-holes, was disposed to think that a letter or telegram had in fact been sent up for the gentleman; and Darrow, at the announcement, could hardly wait to ascend to his room. Upstairs, he and his companion had the long dimly-lit corridor to themselves, and Sophy paused on her threshold, gathering up in one hand the pale folds of her cloak, while she held the other out to Darrow.
“If the telegram comes early I shall be off by the first train; so I suppose this is good-bye,” she said, her eyes dimmed by a little shadow of regret.
Darrow, with a renewed start of contrition, perceived that he had again forgotten her letter; and as their hands met he vowed to himself that the moment she had left him he would dash down stairs to post it.
“Oh, I’ll see you in the morning, of course!”
A tremor of pleasure crossed her face as he stood before her, smiling a little uncertainly.
“At any rate,” she said, “I want to thank you now for my good day.”
He felt in her hand the same tremor he had seen in her face. “But it’s you, on the contrary–” he began, lifting the hand to his lips.
As he dropped it, and their eyes met, something passed through hers that was like a light carried rapidly behind a curtained window.
“Good night; you must be awfully tired,” he said with a friendly abruptness, turning away without even waiting to see her pass into her room. He unlocked his door, and stumbling over the threshold groped in the darkness for the electric button. The light showed him a telegram on the table, and he forgot everything else as he caught it up.
“No letter from France,” the message read.
It fell from Darrow’s hand to the floor, and he dropped into a chair by the table and sat gazing at the dingy drab and olive pattern of the carpet. She had not written, then; she had not written, and it was manifest now that she did not mean to write. If she had had any intention of explaining her telegram she would certainly, within twenty-four hours, have followed it up by a letter. But she evidently did not intend to explain it, and her silence could mean only that she had no explanation to give, or else that she was too indifferent to be aware that one was needed.