"I am going to America," she said.  
They sat in the sitting-room¹ at Carteret street. Richard had not seen her since the dinner at the vegetarian² restaurant, and these were almost the first words she addressed to him. Her voice was as tranquil³ as usual; but he discerned, or thought he discerned, in her manner a consciousness that she was guilty towards him, that at least she was not treating him justly.
 
The blow was like that of a bullet: he did not immediately feel it.
 
"Really?" he questioned foolishly, and then, though he knew that she would never return: "For how long are you going, and how soon?"
 
"Very soon, because I always do things in a hurry. I don't know for how long. It's indefinite. I have had a letter from my uncles in San Francisco, and they say I must join them; they can't do without me. They are making a lot of money now, and neither of them is married.... So I suppose I must obey like a good girl. You see I have no relatives here, except Aunt Grace."
 
 
"You many never come back to England?"
 
(Did she colour, or was it Richard's fancy?)
 
"Well, I expect I may visit Europe sometimes. It wouldn't do to give England up entirely⁵. There are so many nice things in England,—in London especially...."
 
Once, in late boyhood, he had sat for an examination which he felt confident of passing. When the announcement arrived that he failed, he could not believe it, though all the time he knew it to be true. His thoughts ran monotonously⁶: "There must be some mistake; there must be some mistake!" and like a little child in the night, he resolutely⁷ shut his eyes to keep out the darkness of the future. The same puerility⁸ marked him now. Assuming that Adeline fulfilled her intention, his existence in London promised to be tragically⁹ cheerless. But this gave him no immediate⁴ concern, because he refused to contemplate¹⁰ the possibility of their intimacy¹¹ being severed¹². He had, indeed, ceased to think; somewhere at the back of the brain his thoughts lay in wait for him. For the next two hours (until he left the house) he lived mechanically, as it were, and not by volition¹³, subsisting¹⁴ merely on a previously¹⁶ acquired momentum¹⁷.
 
He sat in front of her and listened. She began to talk of her uncles Mark and Luke. She described them in detail, told stories of her childhood, even recounted the common incidents of her daily life with them. She dwelt on their kindness of heart, and their affection for herself; and with it all she seemed a little to patronise them, as though she had been accustomed to regard them as her slaves.
 
"They are rather old-fashioned," she said, "unless they have altered. Since I heard from them, I have been wondering what they would think about my going to theatres and so on—with you."
 
"What should they think?" Richard broke in. "There's nothing whatever in that. London isn't a provincial¹⁸ town, or even an American city."
 
"I shall tell them all about you," she went on, "and how kind you were to me when I scarcely knew you at all. You couldn't have been kinder if you'd been my only cousin."
 
"Say 'brother,'" he laughed awkwardly.
 
"No, really, I'm quite serious. I never thanked you properly. Perhaps I seemed to take it all as a matter of course."
 
He wished to heaven she would stop.
 
"I'm disgusted that you are going," he grumbled¹⁹, putting his hands behind his head,—"disgusted."
 
"In many ways I am sorry too. But don't you think I am doing the right thing?"
 <............