"When I say suspense I mean, you know," he
laughed, "suspense about my own case too!"
"Oh yes--about your own case too!" It diminished his magnanimity,
but she only looked at him the more tenderly.
"Not, however," he went on, "that I want to talk to you about that.
It's my own little affair, and I mentioned it simply as part of
Mrs. Pocock's advantage." No, no; though there was a queer present
temptation in it, and his suspense was so real that to fidget was a
relief, he wouldn't talk to her about Mrs. Newsome, wouldn't work
off on her the anxiety produced in him by Sarah's calculated
omissions of reference. The effect she produced of representing her
mother had been produced--and that was just the immense, the
uncanny part of it--without her having so much as mentioned that
lady. She had brought no message, had alluded to no question, had
only answered his enquiries with hopeless limited propriety. She
had invented a way of meeting them--as if he had been a polite
perfunctory poor relation, of distant degree--that made them almost
ridiculous in him. He couldn't moreover on his own side ask much
without appearing to publish how he had lately lacked news;
a circumstance of which it was Sarah's profound policy not to betray
a suspicion.
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