Nothing had passed for half an hour nothing, at least, to be exact, but that each of the companions occasionally and covertly intermitted her pursuit in such a manner as to ascertain the degree of absorption of the other without turning round. What their silence was charged with, therefore, was not only a sense of the weather, but a sense, so to speak, of its own nature.
Maud Blessingbourne, when she lowered her book into her lap, closed her eyes with a conscious patience that seemed to say she waited; but it was nevertheless she who at last made the movement representing a snap of their tension. She got up and stood by the fire, into which she looked a minute; then came round and approached the window as if to see what was really going on. At this Mrs.
Dyott wrote with refreshed intensity. Her little pile of letters had grown, and if a look of determination was compatible with her fair and slightly faded beauty, the habit of attending to her business could always keep pace with any excursion of her thought. Yet she was the first who spoke.
“I trust your book has been interesting.”
“Well enough; a little mild.”
A louder throb of the tempest had blurred the sound of the words. “A little wild?”
“Dear, no timid and tame; unless I`ve quite lost my sense.”
“Perhaps you have,” Mrs. Dyott placidly suggested “reading so many.”
Her companion made a motion of feigned despair. “Ah, you take away my courage for going to my room, as I was just meaning to, for another.”
“Another French one?”
“I`m afraid.”
“Do you carry them by the dozen”
British homes
“Into innocent British homes?” Maud tried to remember. “I believe I brought three seeing them in a shop window as I passed through town. It never rains but it pours! But I`ve already read two.”
“And are they the only ones you do read?”
“French ones?” Maud considered. “Oh, no. D`Annunzio.”
“And what`s that?” Mrs. Dyott asked as she affixed a stamp.
“Oh, you dear thing!” Her friend was amused, yet almost showed pity. “I know you don`t read,” Maud went on; “but why should you? You live!”
“Yes wretchedly enough,” Mrs. Dyott returned, getting her letters together. She left her place, holding them as a neat, achieved handful, und came over to the fire, while Mrs. Blessingbourne turned once more to the window, where she was met by another flurry.
Maud spoke then as if moved only by the elements. “Do you expect him through all this?”
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