The sweet, silent inspection lasted but a moment, then she resumed her stitches, aware that something in him had changed since she last had seen him; but she merely smiled quietly to herself, confident of his unaltered devotion in spite of the strangely hard and unresponsive gaze that had uneasily evaded hers.
As her white fingers flew with the glimmering needle she reflected on conditions as she had left them a week ago.

A week ago, between him and her the most perfect of understandings existed; and the consciousness of it she had carried with her every moment in the country--amid the icy tumble of the surf, on long vigorous walks over the greening hills where wild moorland winds whipped like a million fairy switches till the young blood fairly sang, pouring through her veins.
Since that--some time within the week, _something_ evidently had happened to him, here in the city while she had been away.

What?
As she bent above the fine linen garment on her knee, needle flying, a sudden memory stirred coldly--the recollection of her ride with Rosamund; and instinctively her clear eyes flew open and she raised her head, turning directly toward him a disturbed gaze he did not this time evade.
In silence their regard lingered; then, satisfied, she smiled again, saying: "Have I been away so long that we must begin all over, Captain Selwyn ?" "Begin what, Eileen ?" "To remember that the silence of selfish preoccupation is a privilege I have not accorded you ?" "I didn't mean to be preoccupied--" "Oh, worse and worse!" She shook her head and began to thread the needle.

"I see that my week's absence has not been very good for you.

I knew it the moment you came in with all that guilty absent-minded effrontery which I have forbidden.