Anna and Darrow, the next day, sat alone in a compartment of the Paris train.

　　Anna, when they entered it, had put herself in the farthestcorner and placed her bag on the adjoining seat. She haddecided suddenly to accompany Darrow to Paris, had evenpersuaded him to wait for a later train in order that theymight travel together. She had an intense longing to bewith him, an almost morbid terror of losing sight of him fora moment: when he jumped out of the train and ran back alongthe platform to buy a newspaper for her she felt as thoughshe should never see him again, and shivered with the coldmisery of her last journey to Paris, when she had thoughtherself parted from him forever. Yet she wanted to keep himat a distance, on the other side of the compartment, and asthe train moved out of the station she drew from her bag theletters she had thrust in it as she left the house, andbegan to glance over them so that her lowered lids shouldhide her eyes from him.

　　She was his now, his for life: there could never again beany question of sacrificing herself to Effie's welfare, orto any other abstract conception of duty. Effie of coursewould not suffer; Anna would pay for her bliss as a wife byredoubled devotion as a mother. Her scruples were notovercome; but for the time their voices were drowned in thetumultuous rumour of her happiness.

　　As she opened her letters she was conscious that Darrow'sgaze was fixed on her, and gradually it drew her eyesupward, and she drank deep of the passionate tenderness inhis. Then the blood rose to her face and she felt again thedesire to shield herself. She turned back to her lettersand her glance lit on an envelope inscribed in Owen's hand.

　　Her heart began to beat oppressively: she was in a mood whenthe simplest things seemed ominous. What could Owen have tosay to her? Only the first page was covered, and itcontained simply the announcement that, in the company of ayoung compatriot who was studying at the Beaux Arts, he hadplanned to leave for Spain the following evening.

　　"He hasn't seen her, then!" was Anna's instant thought; andher feeling was a strange compound of humiliation andrelief. The girl had kept her word, lived up to the line ofconduct she had set herself; and Anna had failed in the sameattempt. She did not reproach herself with her failure; butshe would have been happier if there had been lessdiscrepancy between her words to Sophy Viner and the actwhich had followed them. It irritated her obscurely thatthe girl should have been so much surer of her power tocarry out her purpose...

　　Anna looked up and saw that Darrow's eyes were on thenewspaper. He seemed calm and secure, almost indifferent toher presence. "Will it become a matter of course to him sosoon?" she wondered with a twinge of jealousy. She satmotionless, her eyes fixed on him, trying to make him feelthe attraction of her gaze as she felt his. It surprisedand shamed her to detect a new element in her love for him:

　　a sort of suspicious tyrannical tenderness that seemed todeprive it of all serenity. Finally he looked up, his smileenveloped her, and she felt herself his in every fibre, hisso completely and inseparably that she saw the vanity ofimagining any other fate for herself.

　　To give herself a countenance she held out Owen's letter.

　　He took it and glanced down the page, his face grown grave.

　　She waited nervously till he looked up.

　　"That's a good plan; the best thing that could happen," hesaid, a just perceptible shade of constraint in his tone.

　　"Oh, yes," she hastily assented. She was aware of a faintcurrent of relief silently circulating between them. Theywere both glad that Owen was going, that for a while hewould be out of their way; and it seemed to her horriblethat so much of the stuff of their happiness should be madeof such unavowed feelings...

　　"I shall see him this evening," she said, wishing Darrow tofeel that she was not afraid of meeting her step-son.

　　"Yes, of course; perhaps he might dine with you."The words struck her as strangely obtuse. Darrow was tomeet his Ambassador at the station on the latter's arrival,and would in all probability have to spend the evening withhim, and Anna knew he had been concerned at the thought ofhaving to leave her alone. But how could he speak in thatcareless tone of her dining with Owen? She lowered her voiceto say: "I'm afraid he's desperately unhappy."He answered, with a tinge of impatience: "It's much the bestthing that he should travel.""Yes--but don't you feel..." She broke off. She knew howhe disliked these idle returns on the irrevocable, and herfear of doing or saying what he disliked was tinged by a newinstinct of subserviency against which her pride revolted.

　　She thought to herself: "He will see the change, and growindifferent to me as he did to HER..." and for a momentit seemed to her that she was reliving the experience ofSophy Viner.

　　Darrow made no attempt to learn the end of her unfinishedsentence. He handed back Owen's letter and returned to hisnewspaper; and when he looked up from it a few minutes laterit was with a clear brow and a smile that irresistibly drewher back to happier thoughts.

　　The train was just entering a station, and a moment latertheir compartment was invaded by a commonplace couplepreoccupied with the bestowal of bulging packages. Anna, attheir approach, felt the possessive pride of the woman inlove when strangers are between herself and the man sheloves. She asked Darrow to open the window, to place herbag in the net, to roll her rug into a cushion for her feet;and while he was thus busied with her she was conscious of anew devotion in his tone, in his way of bending over her andmeeting her eyes. He went back to his seat, and they lookedat each other like lovers smiling at a happy secret.

　　Anna, before going back to Givre, had suggested Owen'smoving into her apartment, but he had preferred to remain atthe hotel to which he had sent his luggage, and on arrivingin Paris she decided to drive there at............