Presently, when he did raise his eyes, he found that she was staring at him, curiously, intently. She had found herself: she had found him; and—oh yes—he saw it—he was far from her. The stare, essentially, was one of a hard hostility. She had been betrayed and robbed; she could not forgive him.
"Kitty," he said timidly, "are you sorry?"
Her sombre gaze dwelt on him.
"Tell me you're not sorry," he pleaded.
She answered him at last: "How dare you ask me that? How dare you ask me whether I am sorry that you are not going to die? You must know that it is an insult."
"I mean—if I disappointed—failed you so—"
"I must wish you dead? You have a charming idea of me."
How her voice clashed and clanged with the hardness, the warfare, the uproar of the outer world. After the hush, the gentleness of Paradise, it was like being thrown, dizzy and bewildered, among the traffic and turmoil of a great city.
"Don't be cruel," he murmured.
"I? Cruel!" she laughed.