He looked at her. It was such a pitiless, relentless glare—that into which her words thrust his consciousness.
"I can't believe that yours were like mine," he said miserably. "No one can ever have done what I have done. Yes, you're right—and it has killed me."
She didn't seem greatly interested.
"But I didn't come to talk of that," he exclaimed quickly. "I came to ask of you two things. Will you grant them?"
She turned her head, leaving only her profile showing. "Certainly not," she said. "I will grant you nothing."
"You mustn't say that. You don't know what I'm asking."
"You're married," she told him, "and I won't have a thing to do with you. I hate the love-making of married men. It's dangerous, too, for they always talk."
That dull, heavy red that had been crimson before he took on chains stole over his face.
"I'll tell you without asking, then," he said. "It may not be the great and tremendous thing to you that it is to me. I think, perhaps, that you may even laugh."
"Very likely," she assented.