“Oh, not at all,” she said lightly, in the most musical tone she could command.
“Very well,” he said, “I wouldn’t know where to begin if you did. I’m sure I’m not aware of having—”
She began to hum softly, to herself, as it were, some tuneless air. He remembered that it was a way she had when she was angry. It was intended to show the last and utmost personal unconcern. In such circumstances the tune was apt to be an improvisation and was never melodious. Sometimes it made her easier to deal with, sometimes harder; he could never tell.
“I don’t exactly see what we are here for,” he ventured, stealing a look at her. She had no reply. He fidgeted a moment and then began drumming with his fingers on the arm of the sofa.
“Please don’t do that,” she said.
He stopped suddenly.
“If you would be good enough, kind enough,” he said it sarcastically, “to indicate, to suggest even, what I am to do—to say.”
“I’m sure I can’t,” she said. “You came. I presumed you had something to say to me.”
“Well, I have something to say to you,” Vernon went on impetuously. “Why didn’t you answer my letters? Why have you treated me this way? That’s what I want to know.”
He leaned toward her. He was conscious of two emotions, two passions, struggling within him, one of anger, almost hate, the other of love, and strangely enough they had a striking similarity in their effect upon him. He felt like reproaching, yet he knew that was not the way, and he made a desperate struggle to conquer himself.