I imagined that day I should never again have to live through a time of such suspense¹.  
Waiting, till I could get away without being noticed, to carry my note to Kleiner Klaus's.
 
Waiting, for the Klaus's boy to come home.
 
Waiting, while his mother brushed his clothes and cuffed² him. Waiting, while he recovered his spirits. Waiting, while slowly, slowly, his mind took in the particulars of his errand, and the most particular part of it, in his eyes—the penny he should have when he brought me back an answer.
 
And the long hours of that afternoon waiting for the answer, or even for the errand-boy to come back. When I was not looking out of the window my mind was still so bent³ on listening for one particular footstep on the brick walk, and at the door his voice—the only voice in the world with meaning in it—that scarcely any impression was made on me by other steps and other voices. I heard them, subconsciously⁴, to dismiss them; for everything was irrelevance⁵ that wasn't Eric.[Pg 170]
 
But my mother interrupted my mechanical reading aloud. "Who," (with her air of listening to sounds beyond my ken) "who can all those people be?"
 
There was Bettina in the passage making frantic⁶ signs that I was to hurry out and speak to her. And voices of men and women came up from the open door. I recognised Lord Helmstone's. I heard him asking the maid if Mr. Annan were here.
 
"No? That's very odd," said Hermione in her sceptical way—"Perhaps he's come in without your knowing. Will you just find out?"
 
My mother, too, had heard Lord Helmstone's cheerful bass⁷, suggesting that his party might take shelter here. I had not noticed before the slight rain falling. "Go and ask him to come upstairs," my mother said. And lower: "I don't want him to take it amiss." I saw she was thinking of her refusal to let Betty go on the yacht.
 
Betty was waiting for me in ambush⁸ near the head of the stair: "You must come down and help me. Ranny is there, too."
 
I was bewildered at finding so many at the[Pg 171] door. For besides Lord Helmstone and Hermione, there was Lady Barbara, and Ranny Dallas and his friend—a cheerful, talkative, red-haired man they called Courtney.
 
The Helmstones were still discussing whether they should come in. Hermione said it was only a slight sprinkle, and her mother was expecting them back to tea. Lady Barbara, with engaging simplicity⁹, insisted there was no object in going back without Mr. Annan.
 
I saw at once that Ranny looked different. Just in what way, or to what extent, I could not at first have said. A very little thinner, too little to account for the change I was dimly conscious of. And when he first came in, he came with some nonsense, and that pleasant laugh, that always "started things" in an easy harmonious¹⁰ key.
 
"We've descended¹¹ on you," Lord Helmstone said, "like a posse of detectives. Sleuth-hounds on that fella Annan's track. We've our instructions to bag him and carry him home to tea."
 
Bettina (oh, I could have beaten her for that!) said Mr. Annan would very probably come in presently. And she led the way into the drawing-room, while I took Lord Helmstone upstairs. By[Pg 172] the time I came down again Bettina had ordered tea.
 
Hermione turned round as I came in. "What have you done with my father! Now father's disappeared!"—as if she had only just grasped the fact. "Didn't I tell you," she said to Ranny, "Duncombe is a place where if a man goes in, he doesn't come out?"
 
Betty and I gave them tea.
 
I lashed¹² myself up to being almost talkative. I am sure they never guessed the effort I was making. I had not taken my usual place for pouring out tea. I sat where I could see the gate. My mind and eyes were so on the watch for Eric I should not have noticed Ranny much, but for an odd new feeling of comradeship that sprang up, I cannot tell how, as the minutes went by and still brought no sign of Eric. Not even a note in answer to mine.
 
As tea went on, and I grew more miserable¹³, I noticed that Ranny flagged, too. After saying something Ranny-ish enough, he would fall into quiet, looking straight in front of him as though we none of us were there. As though even Bettina were not there. Bettina's eyes kept turning[Pg 173] his way. But Ranny never once looked at her. And the more I looked at him, the more I felt............