An indescribable expression flitted across his face, changing it marvellously.
"I would never have you know the dark side," he said briefly, as he took the cup she held out to him.
She was conscious that the tension, though lessened had not altogether disappeared. There was in his manner a constraint that set her heart throbbing painfully. She glanced furtively from time to time at his stern worn face, and the weariness in his eyes brought a lump into her throat.
He talked spasmodically, of friends whom he had seen in London, of a hundred and one trivial matters, but of the business that had kept him in town he said nothing and she wondered what had been in his mind when he had departed from an established rule and deliberately sought her in a room that he never entered. Had he come with any express intention, any confidence that had been thwarted by Mouston's stupid behaviour? She stifled a sigh of disappointment. He might never again be moved by the same impulse.
With growing anxiety she noticed that his restlessness was greater even than usual. Refusing a second cup of tea he lit a cigarette, pacing up and down as he talked, his hands plunged deep in his pockets.
In one of the silences that punctuated his jerky periods he paused by a little table on which lay a portfolio, and lifting it idly looked at the sketches it contained. With a sudden look of apprehension Gillian started and made a half movement as if to rise, then with a shrug she sank back on the sofa, watching him intently. It was her private sketch book, and there was in it one portrait in particular, his own, that she had no wish for him to see. But remonstrance would only call attention to what she hoped might pass unnoticed. Craven turned over the sketches slowly. He had seen little of his wife's work since their marriage, she was shy of submitting it to him, and with the policy of non-interference he had adopted he had expressed no curiosity. He recognised many faces, and, recognising, remembered wherein lay her special skill. He found himself looking for characteristics that were known to him in the portraits of the men and women he was studying. There was no attempt at concealment--vices and virtues, liberality of mind, pettiness of soul were set forth in naked truth. A sympathetic picture of Peters arrested him, though the name written beneath it puzzled. He looked at the kindly generous countenance with its friendly half-sad eyes and tender mouth with a feeling of envy. He would have given years of his life to have possessed the peace of mind that was manifested in the calm serenity of his agent's face.