Esther stood looking up at him, her lips parted, as if she drank what he had to say through them, and drank it thirstily.
"How good you are!" she said. "O Jeff, how good! When I've—" There she paused, still watching him. But Esther had the woman's instinctive trick of being able to watch accurately while she did it passionately.
Jeff flushed to his hair, but her cleverness did not lead her to the springs of his emotion. He was ashamed, not of her, but of himself.
"You're off," he said, "all wrong. I do want to save you from this horrible mix-up I've made for you. But I'm not good, Esther. I'm not the faithful chap it makes me seem. I'm different. You wouldn't know me. I don't believe we ever knew each other very well."
Something like terror came into her beautiful eyes. Was he, that inner terror asked her, trying to explain that she had lost him? Although she might not want him, she had always thought he would be there.
"You mean—" she began, and strove to keep a grip on herself and decide temperately whether this would be best to say. But some galled feeling got the better of her. The smart was too much. Hurt vanity made her wince and cry out with the passion of a normal jealousy. "You mean," she continued, "you are in love with another woman."
It was a hit. He had deserved it, he knew, and he straightened under it. Let him not, his alarmed senses told him, even think of Lydia, lest these cruelly clever eyes see Lydia in his, Lydia in his hurried breath, even if he could keep Lydia from his tongue.
"Esther," he said, "don't say such a thing. Don't think it. What right have I to look at another woman while you are alive? How could I insult a woman—" He stopped, his own honest heart knocking against his words. He had dared. He had swept his house of life and let Lydia in.
"Yes," said Esther thoughtfully, and, it seemed, hurt to the soul, "you love somebody else. O Jeff, I didn't think—" She lifted widened eyes to his. Afterward he could have sworn they were wet with tears. "I stand in your way, don't I? What can I do, not to stand in your way?"
"Do?" said Jeff, in a rage at all the passions between men and women. "Do? You can stop talking sentiment about me and putting words into my mouth. You can make over your life, if you know how, and I'll help you do it, if I can. I thought you were trying to free yourself. You can do that. I won't lift a hand. You can say you're afraid of me, as you have before. God knows whether you are. If you are, you're out of your mind. But you can say it, and I won't deny you've just cause. You mustn't be a prisoner to me."