One small hand lay clenched on the table between
them, and there was a force and energy in her attitude which arrested
his startled attention.
"I think you are mistaken, Captain Nicholson," she said. "My husband
has no shares to sell."
"But yesterday he told me that he had!"
"Yes, yesterday, no doubt. But he heard to-day from the Rajah. I
think, if you do not mind waiting, he will tell you himself that what
I say is true."
For a second they looked straight at each other without speaking.
Neither was conscious of any clear thought, but both knew that in that
breathing space they had exchanged a signal from those hidden chambers
which men unlock only in brief moments of silent crisis. The crisis
had come in spite of a year's defiant struggle. It had broken down the
barrier of trivial commonplaces behind which they had always sought
shelter; it had rushed over them in a flash, like a sudden tidal wave,
scorning their painfully erected defenses, driving them helplessly
before it. It had no apparent cause, save that in that moment of alarm
she had looked at him with her soul unguarded, and he, overwhelmed by
that silent revelation, had allowed his own sternly repressed secret
to flash back its breathless message. Nicholson was the first to
regain his self-control. He bent down and, picking up her work,
restored it gently to her hands.
"You must go on with your sewing," he said. "I like seeing you work.
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