"How soon do you go?" Her voice all through is utterly without expression, or emotion of any kind.
"Immediately," he answers, curtly. "Are you in such a hurry to be rid of me? Be satisfied, then: I start to-morrow." Then, after an unbroken pause, in which even her breathing cannot be heard, he says, in a curious voice, "I suppose there will be no occasion for me to write to you while I am away?"
She does not answer directly. She would have given half her life to be able to say, freely, "Write to me, Dorian, if only a bare line, now and then, to tell me you are alive;" but pride forbids her.
"None, whatever," she says, coldly, after her struggle with her inner self. "I dare say I shall hear all I care to hear from Clarissa or Sir James."
There is a long silence. Georgie's eyes are fixed dreamily upon the sparkling coals. His eyes are fixed on her. What a child she looks in her azure gown, with her yellow hair falling in thick masses over her shoulders. So white, so fair, so cruelly cold! Has she no heart, that she can stand in that calm, thoughtful attitude, while his heart is slowly breaking?
She has destroyed all his happy life, this "amber witch," with her loveliness, and her pure girlish face, and her bitter indifference; and yet his love for her at this moment is stronger, perhaps, than it has ever been. He is leaving her. Shall he ever see her again?
Something at this moment overmasters him. Moving a step nearer to her, he suddenly catches her in his arms, and, holding her close to his heart, presses kisses (unforbidden) upon her lips and cheek and brow.
In another instant she has recovered herself, and, placing her hands against his chest, frees herself, by a quick gesture, from his embrace.
"Was that how you used to kiss her?" she says, in a choked voice, her face the color of death. "Let me go: your touch is contamination."
Almost before the last word has passed her lips, he releases her, and, standing back, confronts her with a face as livid as her own.