Presently she said, “I love my husband—I want you to know that, it doesn’t matter, but I want you to know that, and that I am content with him, and quite happy——”
“Yes,” Castillion Rodkin answered and began trembling again, holding on to the sides of the bed.
“But there is something in me,” she continued, “that is very mournful because it is being.”
He could not answer and tears came to his eyes.
“There is another thing,” she said with abrupt roughness, “that I must insist on, that is that you will not insult me by your presence while you are in this room.”
He tried to stop his weeping now, and his body grew tense, abject.
“You see,” she continued, “some people drink poison, some take a knife, and others drown; I take you.”
In the very early dawn, she sat up with a strange smile. “Will you smoke?” she said, and lit him a cigarette. Then she withdrew into herself, sitting on the edge of the mahogany boards, her hands in her lap.
And there was a little ease, and a little comfort in Castillion Rodkin, and he turned, drawing up one foot, thrusting his hand beneath his beard, slowly smoking his cigarette.
“Does one regret?” he asked, and the figure of Katrina never moved, nor did she seem to hear.