It was Jean Rendall, delightful to look at as ever, but with a new
expression on her face. If she was not anxious, and very keenly anxious
too, about something, I was much mistaken.
Unwillingly I resumed the role of Thomas Hobhouse and informed her
nervously that the doctor had gone out, I knew not where.
She said nothing for a moment, but still lingered. Then she said,
"What a dreadful thing about poor Mr. Bolton!"
"Dreadful!" agreed Mr. Hobhouse. "Terrible! Dreadful! Terrible!"
"Did my cousin tell you much about it?"
"Oh, no, not much, very little. He was upset, very much upset, I
could see."
"Everybody is," she said, and then added, "I should think you must be,
Mr. Hobhouse."
There seemed to be an odd note in her voice set up a vague chain
of disquieting emotions, but Mr. Hobhouse answered in the same
tone as before:
"Oh, yes, I am distressed; dreadfully distressed."
Again she was silent, but still she lingered.
"I am going to walk home again," she said suddenly. "Would you care to
walk a little way with me?"
At that moment I wanted my own company and had a certain shrinking from
hers; so the voice of Mr. Hobhouse bleated something about having caught
a slight chill.
"Please come a little way," she said. "I want to speak to you
particularly."
There was a note of appeal in her voice which would have taken a stouter
man than Thomas Hobhouse to resist.
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