She breathed a negative.
He had guessed it. Concepcion had meant to be alone with him. Having
married for love, and her husband being rapt away by the war, she
intended to resume her old, honest, quasi-sentimental relations with
G.J. A reliable and experienced bachelor is always useful to a young
grass-widow, and, moreover, the attendant hopeless adorer nourishes
her hungry egotism as nobody else can. G.J. thought these thoughts,
clearly and callously, in the same moment as, mounting the next
flight of stairs, he absolutely trembled with sympathetic anguish for
Concepcion. His errand was an impossible one; he feared, or rather he
hoped, that the very look on his face might betray the dreadful news
to that undeceivable intuition which women were supposed to possess.
He hesitated on the stairs; he recoiled from the top step--(she had
coquettishly withdrawn herself into the room)--he hadn't the slightest
idea how to begin. Yes, the errand was an impossible one, and yet such
errands had to be performed by somebody, were daily being performed by
somebodies. Then he had the idea of telephoning privily to fetch her
cousin Sara. He would open by remarking casually to Concepcion:
"I say, can I use your telephone a minute?" He found a strange
Concepcion in the drawing-room.
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