edly she had grown older and her manner had grown older too. It
suggested that it was she who was the protector; that she wished, as
far as possible, to spare him in an interview which must necessarily
be painful. It was as if she remembered that he at any rate was young,
and that these gloomy circumstances must be highly distasteful to his
youth. In that she was the same as ever; every nerve in her shrank
from the pain of giving pain.

At least that was his first impression. And then (no consoling view
being really open to him) he told himself he was a fool to suppose
that in the circumstances she could think of him at all. 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.

"It was about the library that I wanted to see you, Miss Harden."

"Was it? I was just going to ask you not to do anything more to the
catalogue if you have not finished it."

"I finished it ten days ago--before the twenty-seventh."

She smiled faintly. "Then you kept your promise. It doesn't matter.
What I most wanted to speak to you