“What shall I do?” he said to himself. “What shall I do?”
He was compelled to admit that she was not in the least to blame. She had made no pretences to him. She had simply accepted what he cast at her feet, what he fell on his knees to beg her to take. She had not deceived him. Her hair, her teeth—what greedy, gluttonous teeth!—her long, slender form, her voice, all were precisely as they had promised. He went over their conversations. He remembered much that she had said—brief commonplaces, phrases which revealed her, but which he thought wonderful as they came to his entranced ears upon that shimmering stream of sound. Not an idea! Not an intelligent thought except those repeated—with full credit—from the conversation of others.
“Fool! Fool!” he said to himself. “I am the most ridiculous of men. If I tried to speak, I should certainly bray.”
He turned and looked at her as she sat with her back toward him. Her hair was caught up loosely, coil on coil of dull gold. It just revealed the nape of her neck above the lace of her dressing-gown. “Yes, it is a beautiful neck! She is a beautiful woman.” Yet the thought that that beauty was his, thrust at him like the red-hot fork of a teasing devil. “It is what I deserve,” he said. “But that makes it the more exasperating. What shall I do?”
“Why are you so quiet, sweetheart?” she said, throwing her napkin on the table. “Come here and kiss me and say some of those pretty things. You Americans do have a queer accent. But you know how to make love cleverly. No wonder you caught poor, foolish me.”
“My wife,” he thought. “Good God, what have I done? It must be a ghastly dream.” But he crossed the room and sat opposite her without looking at her. “I’m not very fit this morning,” he said.
“I thought you weren’t.” Her spell-casting voice was in the proper stage-tone for sympathy. “I saw that you didn’t eat.”
“Eat!” He shuddered and closed his eyes to prevent her seeing the sullen fury which blazed there. He was instantly ashamed of himself. Only—if she would avoid reminding him of the chops and potato disappearing behind that gleaming screen of ivory. He was sitting on a little sofa. She sat beside him and drew his head down upon her shoulder. She let her long, cool fingers slide slowly back and forth across his forehead.
“I do love you.” There was a ring of reality in her tone beneath the staginess. “We are going to be very, very happy. You are so different from Englishmen. And I’m afraid you’ll weary of your stupid English wife. I’m not a bit clever, you know, like the American women.”
He was unequal to a hypocritical protest in words, so he patted her reassuringly on the arm. He was less depressed now that she had stopped eating and was at her best. He rose and with ashamed self-reproach kissed her hair. “I shall try to make you not repent your bargain,” he said, with intent to conceal the deeper meaning of his remark. “But I must send off some telegrams. Then we’ll go for a drive. I need the air.”