"Yes," said Nell, forgetting her own misery in sympathy for him.
He looked at her quickly.
"You have noticed it?"
Nell inclined her head.
"I have lived in the house--I have seen----" she faltered.
He nodded once or twice.
"Yes; I suppose that you could not help seeing that there has been a--a
gulf between us; that we are not as other, happier, husbands and wives."
He sighed, and passed his hand across his brow wearily.
"But we are not the only couple who, living in the same house, are
asunder. I am not the only man who has to endure, secretly and with a
smiling face, the fact that his wife does not care for him."
Nell raised her head, and the color came to her pale face.
"You are wrong--wrong!" she said, in a low voice, but eagerly.
"Wrong? I beg your pardon?" he said gravely.
"It is all a terrible mistake," said Nell. "She does care for you. Oh,
yes, yes! It is you who have been blind; it is your fault. It is hers,
too; but you are the man, and it is your place to speak--to tell her
that you love her----"
He reddened as he turned to her with a curious eagerness and surprise.
"I don't understand you," he said, with a shake in his voice. "Do you
mean me to infer that--that I have been under a delusion in thinking
that my wife----"
Nell rose and stretched out her hands with a gesture of infinite
weariness.
"Oh, how blind you are!" she said, almost impatiently. "You think that
she does not care for you, and she thinks that of you, and you are both
in love with each other."
His face glowed, and a strange brightness--the glow of hope--shone in
his eyes.
"Take care!" he said huskily. "You--you use words lightly, perhaps
unthinkingly----"
Nell laughed, with a kind of weary irritation.
"I am telling you the truth; I am trying to open your eyes," she said.
"She loves you."
"Why--why do you think so? Have you ever heard her address a word to me
that had a note of tenderness in it?"
"Have you ever addressed such a word to her?" retorted Nell.
He started, and gazed at her confusedly.
"You have always treated her as if she were a mere acquaintance, some
one who was of no consequence to you. Oh, yes, you have been polite,
kind, in a way, but not in a way a woman wants. I am only a girl,
but--but"--she thought again of Drake, of her own love story, and her
lips trembled--"but I have seen enough of the world to know that there
is nothing which will hurt and harden a woman more than the 'kindness'
with which you have treated her. I think--I don't know, but I think if I
cared for a man, I would rather that he should beat me than treat me as
if I were just a mere acquaintance whom he was bound to treat politely.
And did you think that it was she who was to show her heart? No; a woman
would rather die than do that. It is the man who must speak, who must
tell her, ask her for her love. And you haven't, have you, Lord Wolfer?"