"I feel the effects of the weather myself," he said. "I have been horribly depressed all day, and I have a headache. Perhaps that is why the brightness of your room seemed to hurt my eyes. You know that I always like it when I am well."
He looked at her keenly, hoping that this reference to possible-ill-health might bring the girl to his feet, as it had often done before in the case of other women; but it did not seem to produce the least effect. She stood silent, immobile, with her eyes still fixed upon the floor. Silence and stillness were so unusual in one of Ethel's vivacious temperament, that Oliver began to feel alarmed.
"Ethel," he said, advancing to her, and laying his hand upon hers, "what is wrong? What have I done?"
She shook her head hastily, but made no other reply.
"Look at me," he said, softly.
And then she lifted her eyes. But they wore a questioning and not a trustful look.
"Ethel, dearest, what have I done to offend you? It cannot be my silly comment on your room that makes you look so grave? Believe me, dear, it came only from my headache and my bad temper. I am deeply sorry to have hurt you. Only speak—scold me if you like—but do not keep me in this suspense."
He was skilled in the art of pleading. His pale face, usually so expressionless, took on the look of almost passionate entreaty.
Ethel was an actress by profession—perhaps a little by nature also—but she was too essentially simple-hearted to suspect her friends of acting parts in private life, and indeed trusted them rather more implicitly than most people trust their friends. It had been a grief to her to doubt Oliver's faith for a moment, and her eyes filled with tears, while they flashed also with indignation, as she replied,
"You must know what I mean. I have felt it for a very long time. You do not care for me as you used to do."