That sound had always made her think of him.
Had he forgotten how to whistle also, she wondered?
She expected awkwardness, constraint; but Burke surprised her by
his ease of manner. Above all, she noticed that he was by no means
kind to Guy. He treated him with a curt friendliness from which
all trace of patronage was wholly absent. His attitude was rather
that of brother than host, she reflected. And its effect upon Guy
was of an oddly bracing nature. The semi-defiant air dropped from
him. Though still subdued, his manner showed no embarrassment. He
even, as time passed, became in a sardonic fashion almost jocose.
In company with Burke, he drank lager-beer, and he betrayed not the
smallest desire to drink too much. Furtively she watched him
throughout the meal, trying to adjust her impressions, trying to
realize him as the lover to whom she had been faithful for so long,
the lover who had written those always tender, though quite
uncommunicative letters, the lover, who had cabled her his welcome,
and then had so completely and so cruelly failed her.
Her ideas of him were a whirl of conflicting notions which utterly
bewildered her. Of one thing only did she become very swiftly and
surely convinced, and that was that in failing her he had saved her
from a catastrophe which must have eclipsed her whole life.
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