"Dear old Grace!"
He had risen from his chair, and this time she made no effort to detain him. He seemed to have recovered his self-composure, and it struck her painfully, humiliatingly almost, that he should have spoken in that light way of the expedition to Fontainebleau on the morrow.... Well, men were different, she supposed; she remembered having felt that once before about Nick.
It was on the tip of her tongue to cry out: "But wait--wait! I'm not going to marry Strefford after all!"--but to do so would seem like an appeal to his compassion, to his indulgence; and that was not what she wanted. She could never forget that he had left her because he had not been able to forgive her for "managing"--and not for the world would she have him think that this meeting had been planned for such a purpose.
"If he doesn't see that I am different, in spite of appearances... and that I never was what he said I was that day--if in all these months it hasn't come over him, what's the use of trying to make him see it now?" she mused. And then, her thoughts hurrying on: "Perhaps he's suffering too--I believe he is suffering-at any rate, he's suffering for me, if not for himself. But if he's pledged to Coral, what can he do? What would he think of me if I tried to make him break his word to her?"
There he stood--the man who was "going to Fontainebleau to-morrow"; who called it "taking the necessary steps!" Who could smile as he made the careless statement! A world seemed to divide them already: it was as if their parting were already over. All the words, cries, arguments beating loud wings in her dropped back into silence. The only thought left was: "How much longer does he mean to go on standing there?"
He may have read the question in her face, for turning back from an absorbed contemplation of the window curtains he said: "There's nothing else?"
"Nothing else?"
"I mean: you spoke of things to be settled--"
She flushed, suddenly remembering the pretext she had used to summon him.
"Oh," she faltered, "I didn't know... I thought there might be.... But the lawyers, I suppose...."
She saw the relief on his contracted face. "Exactly. I've always thought it was best to leave it to them. I assure you"--again for a moment the smile strained his lips--"I shall do nothing to interfere with a quick settlement."