He sat down beside her, and sought to engage one of her hands in his own, but she withdrew it, and pressed it with the other and the handkerchief in both, to her lips and chin. Vernon glanced about the respectable parlors, maintained in instant readiness for anybody that might happen along with his little comedy or his little tragedy. She continued to look obdurately out of the window.
“Amelia,” he said, “aren’t you going to speak to me? Tell me what I have done.”
Still there came no answer. He flung himself back on the sofa helplessly.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know what it all means. I’ve tried to fathom it in the last hour, but it’s too deep for me; I give it up.” He flung out his hands to illustrate his abandonment.
“God knows,” he suddenly exclaimed, “I was only trying to do something worthy—for your sake!”
“Please don’t swear, Morley,” Amelia said.
He looked up swiftly.
“Well—” he began explosively, but he didn’t continue. He relapsed into a moody silence. He stretched his legs out before him in an ungainly attitude, with his hands plunged deep in his trousers’ pockets. Then he knitted his brows and tried to think.
“I suppose,” he said, as if he were thinking aloud, “that you expect some explanation, some apology.”