There is not the faintest nervousness or girlish confusion in her tone. Stephen, watching her closely, feels a terrible despair that threatens to overwhelm him. If only one little blush would mantle her cheek, if for one second her beautiful, feverishly bright eyes would droop before his! He battles with the growing misery, and for the time being, allays it.
"Not yet;" he says. Then he colors hotly, and his eyes leaving her face seek the ground. A sense of shame betrays itself in every feature. "It is early yet," he says, in a strange reluctant tone; "and if—if you think it better to put it off for a day or two, or even to let him find out for himself by degrees—or—"
"No!"—remorselessly—"he shall be told now—at once! Remember all you said about him last evening. I have not forgotten. What!" cries she, with sudden passion, "do you think I will live another day believing he imagines me regretful of my decision—cut to the heart, perhaps, that I am no longer anything to him? I tell you no! The very thought is intolerable."
"But—"
"There must be no hesitation," she says, interrupting him with a quick gesture. "It was in our agreement that he should be told to-day. If one part of that agreement is to be broken, why then, let us break it all; it is not too late yet. I shall not care, and perhaps it will be better if—"
Her cruelty stings him into vehement declaration.
"It will not be better," he says, wrathfully. "I will do anything, everything, you wish, except"—bitterly—"give you up."
To him it seems a wretched certainty that it is her wish already to break the bond formed between them but a few short hours ago. Has she so soon repented?
"Where is Roger?" he asks, turning from her, all the lover's gladness gone from his eyes. He is looking stern and pale, and as a man might who is determined to do that against which his soul revolts.
How shall he tell this man, who was once his dearest friend, that he has behaved as a very traitor to him.