He had
nothing tangible to go upon. He could see through it. He could see
perfectly through the smile, the self-possession, even the air of
polite and leisurely interest in his illness. She dwelt on him because
he was of all themes the one most indifferent to her. She was simply
holding herself in, according to the indestructible instincts of her
race.
He need not have been afraid of seeing her suffer; that, at any rate,
he would not see. To let him see it would have been to her an extreme
personal degradation, an offence against the decencies of her class.
This sorrow of hers, this invisible, yet implacable sorrow, stood
between them, waving him away. It opened up again the impassable gulf.
He felt himself not only a stranger, but an inferior, separated from
her beyond all possibility of approach. She had not changed. She had
simply reverted to her type.
Her eyes waited for him to speak. But they were not the eyes he knew,
the eyes that had drawn him to confession. It was borne in upon him
that this (though it might be his last moment with her) was not the
moment to confess. There was a positive grossness in the idea of
unburdening himself in the presence of this incommunicable grief. It
was like putting in a claim for consideration as an equal sufferer. He
had no right to obtrude himself upon her at all. In her calm-eyed
attention there was a hint--a very delicate and gentle one--that he
would do well to be impersonal, business-like, and, above all, brief.
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