And then
Oliver began to think that he might have been right when he had thought of
the present expedition as something rather perilous--he found that he had
moved three steps away from Mrs. Severance without his knowing it, very
much as he might have from an unfamiliar piece of furniture near which
he was standing and which had instantaneously developed all the electric
properties of a coil of live wire. Then he looked at Ted's face--and what
he saw there made him want to kick himself for looking--because it is never
proper for even the friendliest spectator to see a man's private soul
stripped naked as a grass-stalk before his own eyes. It was horribly like
watching Ted lose balance on the edge of a cliff that he had been walking
unconcernedly and start to fall without crying out or any romantic
gestures, with only that look of utter surprise struck into his face and
the way his hands clutched as if they would tear some solid hold out of the
air. Oliver kept his eyes on him in a frosty suspense while he read the
letter all through three times and then folded it and put it carefully away
in his breast pocket--and then when he looked at Mrs.
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