"Oh, Ben," said Miss Innes sweetly, "I am glad to see you. But I have grown so old—so very old! Should you have recognised me?"
He laughed uncomfortably. "You’re not speaking seriously, Miss Innes," he replied, rather ceremoniously. "I would recognise you anywhere—and however changed. But you are not changed, except for the better."
She turned to Aunt Maud and Gracie. "Isn’t that beautiful?" she asked. "Could it have been better said! Well, and so here we are at last, and the black barrier which was stretched over the whole future of the world is broken and gone. We are free once more to think and talk of ourselves a little."
It was on her tongue to tell him that she had met Wilfrid Guyse only that afternoon; but when she approached the subject such a lump swelled in her throat that she could not proceed. To speak of any of the family naturally was beyond her strength; and she was sure that, should anybody bring in the name of Ninian, she must break down obviously. Therefore she said no word, though she knew that Wolf was coming to dinner the following night, and that she must collect her forces by that time; must even be prepared to hear his brother’s death discussed as if it were just the death of an ordinary person.
The preoccupation caused by these considerations was so great that she forgot to be awkward or tongue-tied before Ben, with whom she had exchanged but a very few words since the occasion when she refused his offer of marriage. The evening passed off quite agreeably in an attempt on the part of the three ladies to teach their visitor auction bridge. Aunt Maud, through constant playing with convalescent officers, had become a really good player; and Ben’s intelligence was of the calibre which quickly seizes the drift of anything which can be accomplished by the aid of common sense. At the end of it all, Olwen felt that things had gone better than she had anticipated. She had got through without self-betrayal, and found herself at last alone, in a world which no longer contained Ninian; and then her misery rolled over her head indeed.
Morning found her sleepless, red-eyed, wretched. Gracie exclaimed when she appeared, asking hurriedly if she were ill. Ben, whose own sleep had been of a very broken and scanty description, wondered if he dared to hope that the bad night to which she was fain to confess had been in any way connected with the thought of himself.