PART THREE
PART THREE
CHAPTER XV
Sometimes when a man has been shot, he stands for the briefest moment before he falls. So Cutter stood, still facing the window, while the fatal shock passed through him. This was Helen who had spoken, who had reminded him of the time when his train left, but not his wife. He flirted his head around and snatched a glance at her.
She was sitting very erect, not touching the back of her chair. The little frills on her dress stuck up stiffly, like the petals of a very fine white flower. Her cheeks were scarlet above this whiteness; but there were no tears. Her chin was lifted; her lips closed; her eyes covering him like a frost on a cold clear night, one of those still nights when the whole of Nature’s business is to freeze. He turned, took a step toward her, and did not dare take the next step.
You may think you are making the best of a bad situation by ending it. You may persuade yourself that you are doing the square thing, praise yourself for behaving better than the average man does in a similar predicament. Then suddenly something happens, a word falls upon your ear, or you see yourself revealed in the eye of your victim as a rogue, a common fellow who has lost his standing.
Cutter had some such sensation as this, confused but devastating. He was determined to be free, to be no longer bound to this woman who ceased to appeal to him and who did not belong to the world he had won by success. But how was this? She had turned the tables on him. She was not only taking him at his word; she was dismissing him.