"I'm sorry, Jack," she said. "I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am. I didn't love you to begin with—"
"And you've always resented that," he broke in. "You've hugged that ghost of a loveless marriage to your bosom and sighed for the real romance you'd missed. Well, maybe you did. But you haven't found it yet. I'm very sure of that, although I doubt if I could convince you."
"Let me finish," she pleaded. "You knew I didn't love you—that I was worn out and desperate and clutching at the life line you threw. In spite of that,—well, if I fight down this love, or fascination, or infatuation, or whatever it is,—I'm not sure myself, except that it affects me strongly,—can't we be friends again?"
"Friends! Oh, hell!" Fyfe exploded.
He came up out of his chair with a blaze in his eyes that startled her, caught her by the arm, and thrust her out the door.
"Friends? You and I?" He sank his voice to a harsh whisper. "My God—friends! Go to bed. Good night."
He pushed her into the hall, and the lock clicked between them. For one confused instant Stella stood poised, uncertain. Then she went into her bedroom and sat down, her keenest sensation one of sheer relief. Already in those brief hours emotion had well-nigh exhausted her. To be alone, to lie still and rest, to banish thought,—that was all she desired.
She lay on her bed inert, numbed, all but her mind, and that traversed section by section in swift, consecutive progress all the amazing turns of her life since she first came to Roaring Lake. There was neither method nor inquiry in this back-casting—merely a ceaseless, involuntary activity of the brain.
A little after midnight when all the house was hushed, she went into the adjoining room, cuddled Jack Junior into her arms, and took him to her own bed. With his chubby face nestled against her breast, she lay there fighting against that interminable, maddening buzzing in her brain. She prayed for sleep, her nervous fingers stroking the silky, baby hair.