Otherwise, the platform was deserted. The train was not yet signalled, and neither stationmaster nor porter had emerged into view. Without absolute discourtesy it was impossible for Eliot to avoid speaking to her, and Ann's heart quickened its beat a little as, after one swift, almost perturbed glance, he approached her. He looked rather tired, and there was a restless, thwarted expression in his eyes. So might look the eyes of a man who habitually denied himself the freedom to act as his inclinations demanded, and Ann was conscious of a sudden impulse of compassion that overcame the feeling of hurt pride which his recent attitude towards her had inspired. She responded to his greeting with a small, friendly smile, leavened with just a spice of mischief. "So you're not going to cut me altogether, then?" "Cut you? Why should I?" he said quickly. She shook her head. "I don't know why. But you've been doing the next thing to it lately, haven't you?" Then, as he stared moodily down, at her without answering, she continued with the quaint, courageous candour which was a part of her: "Will you tell me quite honestly, Mr. Coventry--would you rather that Robin hadn't a sister living with him at the Cottage? Because, if so, I can easily go away again. I shouldn't have any difficulty in finding a job, and Maria Coombe is quite capable of looking after Robin!" While she was speaking a startled look of dismay overspread his face. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed in an aghast voice. "Have I been as rude as all that?" "Not rude, exactly. Only when first I came you seemed quite pleased that I should be at the Cottage. But now--lately--" She broke off lamely. It was difficult to put the thing into words. There was nothing, actually, that he had done or left undone. It was a matter of atmosphere--an atmosphere of chilly indifference of which she was acutely conscious in his presence and which made her feel unwelcome. But he refused to help her out. His eyes were bent on her face, and it seemed almost as though there were a certain eagerness behind their intent gaze. "Yes," he repeated. "And now--lately?" "You've been--unfriendly," she answered simply. The eagerness died out of his eyes, replaced by the old brooding unhappiness which Ann had read in them the day she had first seen him at the Montricheux Kursaal. "Friendship and I have very little to say to each other." He spoke with a quiet bitterness that was the growth of years. "Friendship implies trust." A bell clanged somewhere, but the signal arm fell unheeded by the man and woman whose conversation had so suddenly become charged with a strange new kind of intimacy. "Then you don't trust me?" There was a hurt note in Ann's voice. She was not used to being distrusted. Coventry smiled ironically, as though at some secret jest of which the edge was turned against himself.