He looked at her in silence. She could have said nothing that would have caused a livelier response within himself. His cynicism noted the fact that while he had mercifully concealed his discontent, she was thinking only of herself. But he did not blame her. It was only the familiar habit of the sex, bred of man's assiduous cultivation of its egotism. He said: "Oh, you'll feel differently about it later. Let's get some fresh air and see what the shops have to offer."
A pause, then she, timidly: "Would you mind very much if I—if I didn't—go on?"
"You mean, if you left me?"
She nodded without looking at him. He could not understand himself, but as he sat observing her, so young, so inexperienced and so undesirable, a pity of which he would not have dreamed his nature capable welled up in him, choking his throat with sobs he could scarcely restrain and filling his eyes with tears he had secretly to wipe away. And he felt himself seized of a sense of responsibility for her as strong in its solemn, still way as any of the paroxysms of his passion had been.
He said: "My dear—you mustn't decide anything so important to you in a hurry."
A tremor passed over her, and he thought she was going to dissolve in hysterics. But she exhibited once more that marvelous and mysterious self-control, whose secret had interested and baffled him. She said in her dim, quiet way:
"It seems to me I just can't stay on."
"You can always go, you know. Why not try it a few days?"
He could feel the trend of her thoughts, and in the way things often amuse us without in the least moving us to wish to laugh, he was amused by noting that she was trying to bring herself to stay on, out of consideration for his feelings! He said with a kind of paternal tenderness: