Anna recalled how quickly he had
read the alarm in her face when he had rushed back to her
sitting-room with the news that Miss Viner had promised to
see him again in Paris. To be so promptly roused, his
suspicions must have been but half-asleep; and since then,
no doubt, if she and Darrow had dissembled, so had he. To
her proud directness it was degrading to think that they had
been living together like enemies who spy upon each other's
movements: she felt a desperate longing for the days which
had seemed so dull and narrow, but in which she had walked
with her head high and her eyes unguarded.
She had come up to Paris hardly knowing what peril she
feared, and still less how she could avert it. If Owen
meant to see Miss Viner--and what other object could he
have?--they must already be together, and it was too late to
interfere. It had indeed occurred to Anna that Paris might
not be his objective point: that his real purpose in leaving
Givre without her knowledge had been to follow Darrow to
London and exact the truth of him. But even to her alarmed
imagination this seemed improbable. She and Darrow, to the
last, had kept up so complete a feint of harmony that,
whatever Owen had surmised, he could scarcely have risked
acting on his suspicions. If he still felt the need of an
explanation, it was almost certainly of Sophy Viner that he
would ask it; and it was in quest of Sophy Viner that Anna
had despatched Miss Painter.
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