He was still in the hall when he caught the sound of her retreating footsteps. He knew she had been expecting him, had listened for him, and was now going back to the drawing-room.

“No,” she cried, on seeing him, and at the first sound of her voice the tears came into her eyes. “No; if things are to go on like this, the end will come much, much too soon.”

“What is it, dear one?”

“What? I’ve been waiting in agony for an hour, two hours⁠ ⁠… No, I won’t⁠ ⁠… I can’t quarrel with you. Of course you couldn’t come. No, I won’t.” She laid her two hands on his shoulders, and looked a long while at him with a profound, passionate, and at the same time searching look. She was studying his face to make up for the time she had not seen him. She was, every time she saw him, making the picture of him in her imagination (incomparably superior, impossible in reality) fit with him as he really was.