His face was haggard but he smiled in reply, "All right. In the library? Then in five minutes--I'm a little wet."
In an incredibly short time he joined her, changed and immaculate. She looked up from the tea urn she was manipulating, her eyes resting on him with the pleasure his physical appearance always gave her. "You've been quick!" "Yoshio," he replied laconically, handing her buttered toast.
He ate little himself but drank two cups of tea, smoking the while innumerable cigarettes. Miss Craven chatted easily until the tea table was taken away and Craven had withdrawn to his usual position on the hearthrug, lounging against the mantelshelf.
Then she fell silent, looking at him furtively from time to time, her hands restless in her lap, nerving herself to speak. What she had to say was even more difficult to formulate than her confidence to Peters. But it had to be spoken and she might never find a more favourable moment. She took her courage in both hands.
"I want to speak to you of Gillian," she said hesitatingly.
He looked up sharply. "What of Gillian?" The question was abrupt, an accent almost of suspicion in his voice and she moved uneasily.
"Bless the boy, don't jump down my throat," she parried, with a nervous little laugh; "nothing of Gillian but what is sweet and good and dear ... and yet that's not all the truth--it's more than that. I find it hard to say. It's something serious, Barry, about Gillian's future," she paused, hoping that he would volunteer some remark that would make her task easier. But he volunteered nothing and, stealing a glance at him she saw on his face an expression of peculiar stoniness to which she had lately become accustomed. The new taciturnity, which she still found so strange, seemed to have fallen on him suddenly. She stifled a sigh and hurried on: "I wonder if the matter of Gillian's future has ever occurred to you? It has been in my mind often and lately I have had to give it more serious attention. Time has run away so quickly. It is incredible that nearly two years have passed since she became your ward. She will be twenty-one in March--of age, and her own mistress. The question is--what is she to do?"
"Do? There is no question of her doing anything," he replied shortly. "You mean that her coming of age will make no difference--that things will go on as they are?" Miss Craven eyed him curiously.