As he dropped into his seat, Eve glanced at him anxiously.
"John," she said, "has anything happened? You look ill."
He turned to her and tried to smile.
"It's nothing," he said. "Nothing to worry about." He spoke
quickly, but his voice had suddenly become flat. All the
command, all the domination had dropped away from it.
Eve bent close to him, her face lighting up with anxious
tenderness. "It was the excitement," she said, "the strain of
tonight."
He looked at her; but he made no attempt to press the fingers
that clasped his own.
"Yes," he said, slowly. "Yes. It was the excitement of
to-night--and the reaction."
XXVI
The next morning at eight o'clock, and again without
breakfast, Loder covered the distance between Grosvenor Square
and Clifford's Inn. He left Chilcote's house hastily--with a
haste that only an urgent motive could have driven him to
adopt. His steps were quick and uneven as he traversed the
intervening streets; his shoulders lacked their decisive pose,
and his pale face was marked with shadows beneath the eyes
--shadows that bore witness to the sleepless night spent in
pacing Chilcote's vast and lonely room.
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