Courtney rose. "Let's all go up to the house," proposed she: "You'll come, won't you, Mr.—beg pardon—Basil?"
Gallatin stared coldly at her. Her "superhuman courage" now seemed sheer brazenness to him. "Thanks—no," said he in a suffocating voice.
"Hope I didn't damage you, Gallatin," said Vaughan with the rather careless solicitude of man for man.
"Not in the least," replied Gallatin curtly.
"Oh, come now, old man," cried Richard. "Look at my throat." He inspected it himself in the mirror ruefully. "If I can forgive you, you ought to forgive me. Come along, Courtney."
He took her by the arm, smiling at her, she mustering a return smile. Basil was looking intently at her, with an expression of cold fury. When he caught her eye he sneered. She, already at the breaking pitch, could not endure that contempt. She looked piteously at him, gave a low cry, sank upon the sofa, fell over in a dead faint.
Basil gazed stupidly at her. Vaughan dashed into the bath room, reappeared with a wet towel, rubbed her temples and her wrists with it. She opened her eyes, looked round—saw Basil. "Take me away!" she sobbed. "Take me away!"
Her husband gathered her into his arms as if she were a tired child. "Good night, Gallatin. See you in the morning," he said, and strode out with her.
Gallatin fell into one of those futile rages that are the steam of the strife between a man's desire and his courage. "It's my love for her," he assured himself, "that keeps me from following him and taking her from him." He found small comfort in this, however; for, he suspected it was only part—a minor part—of a truth, the rest of which was altogether to his discredit. He sat, he leaned, he stood at the bedroom window overlooking the path. Again and again he fancied he saw her, a new and deeper shadow in the shadows beneath the trees. Whenever the wind stirred a bush there, his fanciful hope made it her cloak. He knew it was impossible for her to return; but he could not give up. He did not leave the window until dawn. Then, he lay on the bed, exhausted, wretched, burning with hate for Richard, with rage against her, with contempt for himself.
XIII