The sound of traffic outside had died away. The silence became almost unnaturally prolonged. Only the echo of Julia's last words seemed, somehow or other, to remain, words which inspired Maraton with a curious and indefinable emotion, a pity which he could not altogether analyse. Twice he had turned softly as though to leave the room, and twice he had returned. He stood now upon the hearthrug, looking down at her, perplexed, himself in some degree agitated. She was not weeping, although every now and then her bosom rose and fell as though with some suppressed storm. It was simply a paroxysm of sensitiveness. She was afraid to look up, afraid to break a silence which to her was full of consolation. Maraton, a little ashamed of the scene in which he had been an unwilling participator, bitterly self-accusing, still found his thoughts diverted from his own humiliation as he watched the girl—a long, slim figure bent in one strangely graceful curve, her beautiful hair gleaming in the soft light, her face still half hidden by her strong, capable fingers—a figure exquisitely symbolic, full of pathos. Her elbows rested upon her knees; she was crouched a little forward. "Julia!" he ventured at last.
She looked up, without undue haste but without hesitation. She had obviously been waiting for speech from him. He saw then that his impression had been a true one. There were no traces of tears in her eyes, which sought his at once—sought his with a look which warned him suddenly of his danger. Her cheeks were burning; she was still shaking with some internal passion.
"After all," he said soothingly, "there are such people in the world.
One can't ignore the fact of their existence. They don't really count."
Her eyes flashed.
"It is terrible that they should be allowed to live."
He smiled at her sympathetically. Speech seemed somehow to lessen the tension between them.
"My dear Julia," he declared, "I am suffering just as much as you. I have the feeling that I have descended to the level of a common brawler. Yet what was I to do? he needed the lesson very badly indeed."
"I only hope that it will last him all his life. I only hope that he will not come near either of us again."
"Very doubtful whether he will want to, I should think," Maraton remarked, leaning against the table. "You certainly didn't mince your words."
"If I could have thought of harsher ones, I would have used them," she asserted.