He stood by her while she observed; she by him when they changed places.
Once that Swithin's emancipation from a trammelling body had been
effected by the telescope, and he was well away in space, she felt her
influence over him diminishing to nothing. He was quite unconscious of
his terrestrial neighbourings, and of herself as one of them. It still
further reduced her towards unvarnished simplicity in her manner to him.
The silence was broken only by the ticking of the clock-work which gave
diurnal motion to the instrument. The stars moved on, the end of the
telescope followed, but their tongues stood still. To expect that he was
ever voluntarily going to end the pause by speech was apparently futile.
She laid her hand upon his arm.
He started, withdrew his eye from the telescope, and brought himself back
to the earth by a visible--almost painful--effort.
'Do come out of it,' she coaxed, with a softness in her voice which any
man but unpractised Swithin would have felt to be exquisite. 'I feel
that I have been so foolish as to put in your hands an instrument to
effect my own annihilation. Not a word have you spoken for the last ten
minutes.' 'I have been mentally getting on with my great theory. I hope soon to be
able to publish it to the world. What, are you going? I will walk with
you, Lady Constantine. When will you come again?' 'When your great theory is published to the world.'