"Should you like to be alone with me?"
"Yes … why not?"
"Good!" said Hyde laughing. "I see no reason if you don't." He put his hand before his eyes, which were throbbing as though he had looked too long at a bright light. But Isabel pulled down his wrist. "Don't do that. I like to watch your eyes. I allow no reserves, Lawrence. And isn't it rather too late to lock the door? I've seen you—"
"Isabel!" He freed himself and stood up. "I beg your pardon, but you must not— I can't stand—" His face was burning. Isabel had not realized—it is difficult for a young girl to realize, convinced of her own insignificance—how deeply his pride had been cut overnight, but she was under no delusion now. He was hot with shame and anger, and had to wait to fight them down before he could go on. "Nineteen are you—or nine? I can't play with you today. Make allowance for me, dearest! I'm in a most difficult position. I've done incalculable mischief, and, to tell you the truth, I shouldn't have chosen to raise this subject again till I'm clear of it. Your people may very fairly object. My cousin is threatening a divorce action. He's mad: and no decent lawyer would take his case into court: but the fact remains that poor Laura has been turned out of doors, and for that I am, in myself-centred carelessness, to blame. You won't misunderstand me, will you, if I say that while this abominable business is hanging over me we can't be formally engaged? Val must be told—nothing would induce me to keep him in the dark for an hour. But for all that I shan't know how to face him. What! ask him for you, and in the same breath tell him that Laura has been turned adrift because I've compromised her? If I were Val there'd be the devil and all to pay. In the meantime I must—I must be sure of you. But you change like the wind: last night you refused me, and to-day . . ." He walked over to the window and stood looking out into the garden, fighting down one of those tremendous storms of memory which swept over him from time to time and made the present seem absolutely one with the past.
"What's the matter?"
He turned, but his voice was thick. "Last time I trusted a woman she betrayed me."
"You're thinking of your wife."
"I often think of her," Hyde said savagely, "and wonder if all women are tarred with the same brush."
"Oh, that is brutal," said Isabel, paling: "but you're tired out."
It was true, he was too tired to rest: heartsick and ashamed, painfully aware of the immense harm he had done and uncertain how to mend it. This sense of guilt was the more harassing because he was not in the habit of regretting his actions, good or bad: but now he could no longer fling off responsibility: it was riveted on him by all the other emotions which Wanhope had evoked, pity for Bernard, and affection for Laura, and humility before Val.