He was about to withdraw as noiselessly as he had entered, but Miss Tarrant (not Furnival; Furnival had not so much as raised his head)--Miss Tarrant had seen him and signed to him to stay.
"You needn't go," she said. "_I'm_ going."
She rose and passed her companion without looking at him, in a sort of averted and offended majesty, and came slowly down the room. Straker waited by the door to open it for her.
On the threshold she turned to him and murmured: "Don't go away. Go in and talk to him--about--about anything."
It struck him as extraordinary that she should say this to him, that she should ask him to go in and see what she had done to the man.
The door swung on her with its soft sigh, shutting him in with Furnival. He hesitated a moment by the door.
"Come in if you want to," said Furnival. "I'm going, too."
He had risen, a little unsteadily. As he advanced, Straker saw that his face bore traces of violent emotion. His tie was a little crooked and his hair pushed from the forehead that had been hidden by his hands. His moustache no longer curled crisply upward; it hung limp over his troubled mouth. Furnival looked as if he had been drinking. But Furnival did not drink. Straker saw that he meant in his madness to follow Philippa.
He turned down the lights that beat on him.
"Don't," said Furnival. "I'm going all right."
Straker held the door to. "I wouldn't," he said, "if I were you. Not yet."
Furnival made the queer throat sound that came from him when words failed him.
Straker put his hand on the young man's shoulder. He remembered how Mrs. Viveash had asked him to look after Furny, to stand by him if he had a bad time. She had foreseen, in the fierce clairvoyance of her passion, that he was going to have one. And, by Heaven! it had come.
Furnival struggled for utterance. "All right," he said thickly.
He wasn't going after her. He had been trying to get away from Straker; but Straker had been too much for him. Besides, he had understood Straker's delicacy in turning down the lights, and he didn't want to show himself just yet to the others.
They strolled together amicably toward the lounge and sat there.
Straker had intended to say, "What's up?" but other words were given him.