The Ambassador, knowing Darrow's urgent reasons for
wishing to be in France, had immediately proposed his going
back, and awaiting at Givre the summons to relieve his
colleague; and he had jumped into the first train, without
even waiting to telegraph the news of his release. He spoke
naturally, easily, in his usual quiet voice, taking his tea
from Effie, helping himself to the toast she handed, and
stooping now and then to stroke the dozing terrier. And
suddenly, as Anna listened to his explanation, she asked
herself if it were true.
The question, of course, was absurd. There was no possible
reason why he should invent a false account of his return,
and every probability that the version he gave was the real
one. But he had looked and spoken in the same way when he
had answered her probing questions about Sophy Viner, and
she reflected with a chill of fear that she would never
again know if he were speaking the truth or not. She was
sure he loved her, and she did not fear his insincerity as
much as her own distrust of him. For a moment it seemed to
her that this must corrupt the very source of love; then she
said to herself: "By and bye, when I am altogether his, we
shall be so near each other that there will be no room for
any doubts between us." But the doubts were there now, one
moment lulled to quiescence, the next more torturingly
alert. When the nurse appeared to summon Effie, the little
girl, after kissing her grandmother, entrenched herself on
Darrow's knee with the imperious demand to be carried up to
bed; and Anna, while she laughingly protested, said to
herself with a pang: "Can I give her a father about whom I
think such things?"
The thought of Effie, and of what she owed to Effie, had
been the fundamental reason for her delays and hesitations
when she and Darrow had come together again in England.
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