The momentary silence seemed endowed with peculiar qualities. They heard the little clock ticking upon the mantelpiece, the tinkle of a hansom bell outside, the muffled sound of motor horns in the distance. Very slowly her head drooped back once more to the shelter of her hands.
"You don't understand," she said simply. "Why should you? I wasn't even angry—that is the terrible part of it. I wished—I found myself wishing—that it were true!"
Maraton's hands suddenly gripped the edge of the table against which he was leaning. Her face was still concealed; once more her long, slim body was shaken with quivering sobs.
"The shame of it!" she moaned. "That is where he hurt. The shame of hearing it and knowing it wasn't true and of wanting it to be true! I haven't ever thought of any one like that—he knows that well enough. He used to call me sexless. There isn't any man in the world has ever dared to touch my lips—he knows it."
Maraton left his place and quietly approached her. She heard him coming, and the trembling gradually ceased. He sat on the arm of her chair, and his hand rested gently upon her shoulder.
"Dear Julia," he said, "I am glad that you have been honest. Life is always full of these emotions, you know, especially for highly-strung people, and sometimes the atmosphere gets a little overcharged and they blaze out as they have done this evening, and perhaps one is the better for it."
She remained quite motionless during his brief pause. One hand had moved from before her face and had gripped his.
"There's our work, you know, Julia," he went on. "There isn't anything in the world must interfere with that. We can't divide our lives, can we? We ought not to want to. If I could make you understand—can I, I wonder?—how splendid it is to have some one here by my side who understands. It seems to me that I am going to be a little lonely. I shall have to stand on my own feet a good deal. I rely so much upon you, Julia. You are a woman, aren't you—I mean a real woman? I need you."
Very slowly she raised her head. Her eyes met his freely. There was something of the childlike adoration of an instinctive and triumphant purity in the smile which parted her lips. Maraton understood at once that the danger was past. The thunder had left the air.
"You know that I am your slave," she murmured. "Don't be afraid that I am becoming neurotic. You see, this was all a little new to me, and for a moment I felt that I wanted to go and hide myself. That has all passed now. I am not even ashamed. I suppose one gets terrified with receiving so much, and wants to give. It's a very natural feminine impulse, isn't it? And I shall give—my fingers, my brain—all I possess."