“She said nothing. She only looked at me as I looked at her.”
“And _you_ didn’t speak either?”
He gave me again his painful smile. “I thought of _you_. The situation
was every way delicate. I used the finest tact. But she saw she had
pleased me.” He even repeated his dissonant laugh.
“She evidently pleased you!” Then I thought a moment. “How long did she
stay?”
“How can I say? It seemed twenty minutes, but it was probably a good
deal less.”
“Twenty minutes of silence!” I began to have my definite view and now
in fact quite to clutch at it. “Do you know you’re telling me a story
positively monstrous?”
He had been standing with his back to the fire; at this, with a pleading
look, he came to me. “I beseech you, dearest, to take it kindly.”
I could take it kindly, and I signified as much; but I couldn’t somehow,
as he rather awkwardly opened his arms, let him draw me to him. So
there fell between us for an appreciable time the discomfort of a great
silence.