She looked at him, waiting.
"Nay," she said, very low.
Her brown, nervous hands were clasped over her knee. They had still the lack of confidence or repose, the almost hysterical look. He winced as he saw them. Then he laughed mirthlessly. She put her fingers between her lips. His slim, black, tortured body lay quite still in the chair. She suddenly took her finger from her mouth and looked at him.
"And have you broken off with Clara?"
"Yes."
His body lay like an abandoned thing, strewn in the chair.
"You know," she said, "I think we ought to be married."
He opened his eyes for the first time since many months, and attended to her with respect.
"Why?" he said.
"See," she said, "how you waste yourself! You might be ill, you might die, and I never know—be no more then than if I had never known you."