第47章

She delayed again for a just perceptible instant."Why, simply of OUR side of the case.""But you told me you were, the other day, when we talked it over before they came back from Ouchy.""Oh, my dear--if you think that, in such a complicated matter, every day, every hour, doesn't more or less modify one's surest sureness!""That's just what I'm driving at.I want to know what has modified yours."She made a slight gesture of impatience."What does it matter, now the thing's done? I don't know that I could give any clear reason..."He got to his feet and stood looking down on her with a tormented brow."But it's absolutely necessary that you should."At his tone her impatience flared up."It's not necessary that I should give you any explanation whatever, since you've taken the matter out of my hands.All I can say is that I was trying to help you: that no other thought ever entered my mind." She paused a moment and then added: "If you doubted it, you were right to do what you've done.""Oh, I never doubted YOU!" he retorted, with a fugitive stress on the pronoun.His face had cleared to its old look of trust."Don't be offended if I've seemed to," he went on."I can't quite explain myself, either...it's all a kind of tangle, isn't it? That's why I thought I'd better speak at once; or rather why I didn't think at all, but just suddenly blurted the thing out----"Anna gave him back his look of conciliation."Well, the how and why don't much matter now.The point is how to deal with your grandmother.You've not told me what she means to do.""Oh, she means to send for Adelaide Painter."The name drew a faint note of mirth from him and relaxed both their faces to a smile.

"Perhaps," Anna added, "it's really the best thing for us all."Owen shrugged his shoulders."It's too preposterous and humiliating.Dragging that woman into our secrets----!""This could hardly be a secret much longer."He had moved to the hearth, where he stood pushing about the small ornaments on the mantel-shelf; but at her answer he turned back to her.

"You haven't, of course, spoken of it to any one?""No; but I intend to now."

She paused for his reply, and as it did not come she continued: "If Adelaide Painter's to be told there's no possible reason why I shouldn't tell Mr.Darrow."Owen abruptly set down the little statuette between his fingers."None whatever: I want every one to know."She smiled a little at his over-emphasis, and was about to meet it with a word of banter when he continued, facing her:

"You haven't, as yet, said a word to him?""I've told him nothing, except what the discussion of our own plans--his and mine--obliged me to: that you were thinking of marrying, and that I wasn't willing to leave France till I'd done what I could to see you through."At her first words the colour had rushed to his forehead;but as she continued she saw his face compose itself and his blood subside.

"You're a brick, my dear!" he exclaimed.

"You had my word, you know."

"Yes; yes--I know." His face had clouded again."And that's all--positively all--you've ever said to him?""Positively all.But why do you ask?"

He had a moment's embarrassed hesitation."It was understood, wasn't it, that my grandmother was to be the first to know?""Well--and so she has been, hasn't she, since you've told her?"He turned back to his restless shifting of the knick-knacks.

"And you're sure that nothing you've said to Darrow could possibly have given him a hint----?""Nothing I've said to him--certainly."

He swung about on her."Why do you put it in that way?""In what way?"

"Why--as if you thought some one else might have spoken...""Some one else? Who else?" She rose to her feet."What on earth, my dear boy, can you be driving at?""I'm trying to find out whether you think he knows anything definite.""Why should I think so? Do YOU?"

"I don't know.I want to find out."

She laughed at his obstinate insistence."To test my veracity, I suppose?" At the sound of a step in the gallery she added: "Here he is--you can ask him yourself."She met Darrow's knock with an invitation to enter, and he came into the room and paused between herself and Owen.She was struck, as he stood there, by the contrast between his happy careless good-looks and her step-son's frowning agitation.

Darrow met her eyes with a smile."Am I too soon? Or is our walk given up?""No; I was just going to get ready." She continued to linger between the two, looking slowly from one to the other."But there's something we want to tell you first: Owen is engaged to Miss Viner."The sense of an indefinable interrogation in Owen's mind made her, as she spoke, fix her eyes steadily on Darrow.

He had paused just opposite the window, so that, even in the rainy afternoon light, his face was clearly open to her scrutiny.For a second, immense surprise was alone visible on it: so visible that she half turned to her step-son, with a faint smile for his refuted suspicions.Why, she wondered, should Owen have thought that Darrow had already guessed his secret, and what, after all, could be so disturbing to him in this not improbable contingency? At any rate, his doubt must have been dispelled: there was nothing feigned about Darrow's astonishment.When her eyes turned back to him he was already crossing to Owen with outstretched hand, and she had, through an unaccountable faint flutter of misgiving, a mere confused sense of their exchanging the customary phrases.Her next perception was of Owen's tranquillized look, and of his smiling return of Darrow's congratulatory grasp.She had the eerie feeling of having been overswept by a shadow which there had been no cloud to cast...

A moment later Owen had left the room and she and Darrow were alone.He had turned away to the window and stood staring out into the down-pour.

"You're surprised at Owen's news?" she asked.

"Yes: I am surprised," he answered.