“And I’m afraid,” he said calmly, but with clear decision, “that I will never do either.”
“But, don’t you see,” she asked with perceptible concern, “that I would not demand it, except that it has been put up to me strongly?”
“I can see nothing,” he replied slowly, “but an unbeautiful lack of faith.”
Freda had turned her head away, so that Mauney did not see the dawning light of wide-eyed fear, nor the quiver of infinite regret.
For a moment she remained thus, and when roused by the shuffling of his feet she turned again, he was stepping from the car.
“I know you will pardon me,” he said. “But under the circumstances, and with this scandal over my head, I cannot allow you to be seen with me in public.”
“Oh, don’t!” She tried to speak, but further words would not come. She saw him lift his hat and, turning away, walk slowly down the road. It had all happened so quickly that she could scarcely believe her eyes. What had she done?
For a moment she watched his retreating figure. Then, with decision to turn the car after him, she settled behind the wheel and adjusted the spark lever preparatory to starting the engine. But her hands, obeying some vague instinct, dropped to her lap. His leave-taking had been so final—and she was a woman! She turned again in the seat and watched him as he went. How could he leave her so abruptly. Surely the trouble between them had been entirely upon the surface. Surely he misunderstood her. This superficial mood of hers, that demanded explanations, was but a vexatious billow. Underneath lay the sea of her love. She did not believe a word of the wretched scandal. Neither now, nor before. He was innocent, of course. What had she done?
A car was approaching and Freda automatically started her engine and turned her motor to the road. Slowly she moved along the smooth tarvia surface, crawling like a guilty thing farther away from Lockwood. She wanted to turn about, drive quickly back, and, drawing up beside him, make amends. But her car seemed to be possessed of a will of its own. It kept straight on into the country, while Freda put forth a futile effort to wring decision from the jumbled thoughts in her mind. Above all considerations, a new fear was possessing her.
“I know; I know it,” something said within her. He had turned away from her with an air of finality—that man who was so hard to move. During the past week he had stubbornly resisted her whimsical tantalizations. Facing her conscious weapons of provocation, he had remained self-contained. But to-night, almost without knowing it, she had moved him, indeed. And Mauney, with his great inertia, once moved, would maintain an irrevocable motion. It was thus, she felt.