"In the library."
"You've upset him dreadfully."
"I'm sorry. But things will soon adjust themselves." He advanced a step, was visible now in the half darkness, looked pallidly handsome in his becoming dinner suit. "A few weeks at most," he went on, somewhat huskily, "and I'll be the vaguest sort of a memory here."
She was glad her back was toward him and that the twilight had darkened into dusk. Of course, he did not really love her. It was simply another case of a man's being isolated with a woman and his head getting full of sentimental fancies. Still— While his love was not real, and therefore its pain largely imaginary, the pain no doubt seemed real, and the love, too. So she was sad for him—very sad. As soon as she felt sure of her voice, she said: "Won't you please light the big lamp for me? I wore a négligée this evening because I wanted to sew. I'm making a suit for Winchie—like one I saw in a French magazine."
He lit the lamp beside the table where she worked in the evenings when she did not go to her own room. "Anything else?" he asked.
"Only sit and talk to me."
"I couldn't talk this evening."
"Then sit and smoke."
She began her work, he smoking in the deep shadow near the window. She could hardly see him; he could see every wave and ripple in her lovely hair, every shift of the sweeping dark lashes, every change in that sweet, small face, in the wide wistful mouth. Even better than playing on the piano, sewing brings out the charm of delicate, skillful fingers. She did not need to look at him to feel his gaze, its longing, its hopelessness. And never before had she thought of him in such a partial, personal way—the way a woman must feel toward the man she knows loves her, even though she only likes him.
She had made up her mind what to do, how to deal practically with this situation. But she had to struggle with her timidity before she could set about the audacious experiment she had planned and resolved. She had long had the frankness of thought that is inseparable from intelligence. The courage to speak her thoughts was as yet in the bud. "Do you mind my speaking again of what you were saying this afternoon?" said she as she sewed industriously.