"Who is it?" came her voice.
"I ... Endymion," he murmured.
He was ablaze with love and repentance and—whiskey, but he was still not in the least what could be called "drunk."
"Come in," said Sophy. Her heart failed her. Was he coming to have his quarrel out? She felt quite numb—lifeless—as though made of wood. Her maid had undressed her and plaited her long hair for the night. She was sitting before the fire in her white dressing-gown. Her eyes looked very sad to him in her quiet face. He came and threw himself on his knees beside her.
"Forgive me ... forgive me, Selene ... forgive me...." he murmured, unconsciously metrical. At any other time Sophy would have teased him for it. Now she did not even notice it. She had been thinking: "George Eliot says somewhere that 'we can endure our worst sorrows but once'.... I am enduring mine twice...."
She put her hand on the bowed head.
"Never mind, dear," she said.
He seized her bare arm in both hot hands, and his lips, still hotter, ran over it. She shivered, trying to draw it away from him. He thought that she shivered with love. He sprang to his feet, and, tall woman as she was, so great was the feverish strength of his desire, he drew her easily up from the low chair into his arms. His breath reeking of spirit poured over her half averted face. She could not bear to struggle with him. That would seem the last degradation.
"I'm tired, dear...." she whispered. "I'm deadly tired...."
And he laughed. And this low exultant laugh, that had once made such music in her ears, seemed like that silent tittering of malicious gods grown audible.