“If the proprietor had eyes,” he said, “he would show you the door; you have broken through his decorations.” Thus lightly he smothered up an emotional moment. Having eaten cold beef, pickled walnut, gooseberry tart, and drunk stone-bottle ginger-beer, they walked into the Park, and light talk was succeeded by the silence Jolyon had dreaded.

“You haven’t told me about Paris,” he said at last.

“No. I’ve been shadowed for a long time; one gets used to that. But then Soames came. By the little Niobe⁠—the same story; would I go back to him?”

“Incredible!”

She had spoken without raising her eyes, but she looked up now. Those dark eyes clinging to his said as no words could have: “I have come to an end; if you want me, here I am.”

For sheer emotional intensity had he ever⁠—old as he was⁠—passed through such a moment?