“Today? Why on earth should you go today?” Owen dropped back a step or two, flushing and paling under his bewildered frown. His eyes seemed to search the girl more closely. “Something’s happened.” He too looked at his step-mother. “I suppose she must have told you what it is?”
Anna was struck by the suddenness and vehemence of his appeal. It was as though some smouldering apprehension had lain close under the surface of his security.
“She’s told me nothing except that she wishes to be with her friends. It’s quite natural that she should want to go to them.”
Owen visibly controlled himself. “Of course–quite natural.” He spoke to Sophy. “But why didn’t you tell me so? Why did you come first to my step-mother?”
Anna intervened with her calm smile. “That seems to me quite natural, too. Sophy was considerate enough to tell me first because of Effie.”
He weighed it. “Very well, then: that’s quite natural, as you say. And of course she must do exactly as she pleases.” He still kept his eyes on the girl. “Tomorrow,” he abruptly announced, “I shall go up to Paris to see you.”
“Oh, no–no!” she protested.
Owen turned back to Anna. “Now do you say that nothing’s happened?”
Under the influence of his agitation Anna felt a vague tightening of the heart. She seemed to herself like some one in a dark room about whom unseen presences are groping.
“If it’s anything that Sophy wishes to tell you, no doubt she’ll do so. I’m going down now, and I’ll leave you here to talk it over by yourselves.”
As she moved to the door the girl caught up with her. “But there’s nothing to tell: why should there be? I’ve explained that I simply want to be quiet.” Her look seemed to detain Mrs. Leath.
Owen broke in: “Is that why I mayn’t go up tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow!”
“Then when may I?”
“Later…in a little while…a few days…”
“In how many days?” “Owen!” his step-mother interposed; but he seemed no longer aware of her. “If you go away today, the day that our engagement’s made known, it’s only fair,” he persisted, “that you should tell me when I am to see you.”
Sophy’s eyes wavered between the two and dropped down wearily. “It’s you who are not fair–when I’ve said I wanted to be quiet.”
“But why should my coming disturb you? I’m not asking now to come tomorrow. I only ask you not to leave without telling me when I’m to see you.”
“Owen, I don’t understand you!” his step-mother exclaimed.
“You don’t understand my asking for some explanation, some assurance, when I’m left in this way, without a word, without a sign? All I ask her to tell me is when she’ll see me.”
Anna turned back to Sophy Viner, who stood straight and tremulous between the two.
“After all, my dear, he’s not unreasonable!”
“I’ll write–I’ll write,” the girl repeated.
“What will you write?” he pressed her vehemently.
“Owen,” Anna exclaimed, “you are unreasonable!”
He turned from Sophy to his step-mother. “I only want her to say what she means: that she’s going to write to break off our engagement. Isn’t that what you’re going away for?”
Anna felt the contagion of his excitement. She looked at Sophy, who stood motionless, her lips set, her whole face drawn to a silent fixity of resistance.
“You ought to speak, my dear–you ought to answer him.”
“I only ask him to wait—-”
“Yes,” Owen, broke in, “and you won’t say how long!”
Both instinctively addressed themselves to Anna, who stood, nearly as shaken as themselves, between the double shock of their struggle. She looked again from Sophy’s inscrutable eyes to Owen’s stormy features; then she said: “What can I do, when there’s clearly something between you that I don’t know about?”
“Oh, if it were between us! Can’t you see it’s outside of us–outside of her, dragging at her, dragging her away from me?” Owen wheeled round again upon his step-mother.
Anna turned from him to the girl. “Is it true that you want to break your engagement? If you do, you ought to tell him now.”
Owen burst into a laugh. “She doesn’t dare to–she’s afraid I’ll guess the reason!”