" Neither noticed that Robert had
come in and was standing by with a telegram. Robert gazed at Mr.
Rickman with admiration, while he respectfully waited for the end of
the paragraph; that, he judged, being the proper moment for attracting
his mistress' attention.
Never in all his life would Rickman forget that passage in the _De
Mysteriis_ which he had not been thinking about. As Lucia took the
telegram she was still looking at Rickman and the smile of amusement
was still on her face. Robert respectfully withdrew. Lucia opened the
envelope and Rickman looked down, apparently absorbed in Iamblichus.
He was now considering in what form of words he would tell her.
Then, without looking up, he knew that something had happened. His
first feeling was that it had happened to himself. He could not say
how or why or what was the precise moment of its happening; he only
knew that she had been talking to him, listening to him, smiling at
him, and that then something had swept him on one side and carried her
away, he did not know where, except that it was beyond his reach.
He looked up, startled by a sudden change in her breathing. She was
standing opposite him; she seemed to be keeping herself upright by her
hands pressed palms downwards on the table. The telegram was spread
open there before her; and she was not looking at it; she was looking
straight at him, but without seeing him. Her mouth was so tightly
closed that it might have been the pressure of her lips that drove
the blood from them; she breathed heavily through her nostrils, her
small thin breast heaving without a sob.
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