Her smile awoke only the faintest echoes of dying memories within him: her smile that had once thrilled him, and sent his heart beating faster, and made his throat so curiously parched—incredible that such things had happened once!
"You are not angry," he said, timidly, with a touch of tragedy in his voice.
"Angry?" she echoed. (He feared she was going to make light of the whole affair, and trembled at the idea of her mocking him: he might have known that that also was not Lilian's way.) "Angry," she repeated. "No, Humphrey. I'm not angry."
"There's no excuse," he began, hopelessly, "I've got nothing to say for myself.... It seems to me ... it seems best that it should be ... for both of us, I mean."
"I think it's better for me," she said, softly. "There's no good making a tragedy of it. Things always turn out for the best."
He fidgeted uneasily. "I was thinking it over last night.... Oh, my head aches with thinking.... You see, what can we do, if we married. Everything's up against us ... it's all fighting and risks, and uncertainty. I don't mind for myself" (and Humphrey really believed this, for the moment), "it's you that I'm thinking of ... it wouldn't be fair. I could ask you to wait..." he did not finish.
Now, really, Humphrey's arrogance must be taught a lesson. Behold, Lilian gathering her forces together to crush him—ask her to wait, indeed! as if he were her last chance. And then something in his eyes checked her, something wistful and intensely pathetic. Splendidly, Lilian spared him. He was so easy to crush ... perhaps she still liked him a little, in spite of everything.
"No," she said. "There's no need to do that. We'll each go our own ways."
The waiter, after discreet knocking at the door, came between them with plates of food and clatter of knives and forks. They regarded him silently, and when he was gone, they made a feeble pretence of eating.