She thrilled, lifted her eyes—dropped them. A chill stole over her. She had to resist an impulse to draw her hands away. He looked really handsome, was outwardly all her imagination had been picturing—and more. Yet— What was the matter? What was lacking? Why could she see only the weakness and coarseness—the qualities that had stood out the night he was drunk and the next afternoon when she was battling against his vanity and jealousy? "It's my nerves," she decided. "I'm under a greater strain than I realize." When he kissed her, she turned her head so that his lips touched her cheek. And immediately she released her hands. "We must be careful," she apologized.
"Why? You're free."
"Yes—but—" She paused.
"Why do you act so strange—so distant?"
"I don't know," she confessed. She felt ashamed of herself that she was visiting on him the consequences of her own folly in having let her imagination overleap all the bounds of probability in forecast. "I don't know," she repeated. "Nerves, I suppose. Or, perhaps it's a bad cold. I've felt one coming on all day. This morning I forgot to close the——"
"Aren't you glad to see me?"
"Yes—yes, indeed," she protested. "Let's sit down."
She took a chair near the table. He was thus compelled to the sofa, several feet away. "We ought to have met where we first arranged," said he, constrained, embarrassed.
"I have to be careful. You forget Winchie."
An uncomfortable silence, then he: "You've been free thirty-nine days. Yet you have not written me."