"You have not mislaid your pulse, I take it."
She retreated from his touch till she could retreat no further; then, brought up by the wall, slid both her hands behind her.
"I'm not ill in that way. You know I always did hate being fussed about. Aspasia told you I had a headache. It is true, I have a headache. I only want to be alone; I only want to sleep."
Sir Arthur stood surveying her. Poor gentleman; his mind was generally in a compact and neatly labelled condition, quite ready with an adequate theory for each event of life. But to-night it was as if some one had been making hay in the tidy compartments. His ideas were positively jumbled. Scarcely did he seem to have a proper hold of one when the next would send him off at a tangent. He had come upstairs to make his wife feel how grievously she had offended his idea of decorum, and had immediately lost himself in admiration of her appearance. And now, once more, in the very midst of his real anxiety about her health, he found himself abjectly remarking what an extraordinarily beautiful woman she was.
"I'm not so sure," he said suddenly, half fondly, half irritably, "that those red cheeks are a very good sign."
He put out a finger and stroked the velvet outline. She closed her eyes and set her teeth, nerving herself against the agony of the caress.
"I left a white rose," he went on, with elaborate gallantry; "I find a red one. My dear, your cheeks are certainly very hot."
That voice from the past, to which Rosamond's ears had been so acutely attuned these days, suddenly took up the words: "My white rose, my red, red rose!" As the sailor feels the raft break beneath him, she felt the last shreds of her self-control giving way under the stress of seas of passion and terror. She looked round desperately; almost, she thought, that man—that intruder—must have heard the dear voice also. Oh, sacrilege to have him standing there!
"Will you not leave me?" she cried, with a burst of pleading. "I must rest. You were always kind to me—will you not leave me now? Indeed, I am in pain."
"My darling!" he exclaimed, in genuine concern.