She smiled with pride. Her mind reached for its box of bricks. He had sent her away from Fetter Lane. That was all over--past--done with.
"That's rather unexpected--isn't it?"
"I can't help that," he exclaimed, with a moment of wildness.
"But after all you've said?"
"I can't help what I've said. It holds good no longer. I take it all back. It means nothing."
She knelt up quickly on her knees. Dignity comes often before humanity with a woman, but pity will always outride the two. Something had happened to him. He was in trouble. The old appeal he had once made to her rose out of the pity that she felt. She stretched up her hands to his shoulders.
"What's happened?" she asked--"tell me what's happened."
He dropped on to the mattress on the floor. He told her everything. He told her how far his ideals had fallen in those last few days. He stripped the whole of his mind for her to lash if she chose; he stripped it, like a child undressing for a whipping.
When he had finished, she sat back again in her former position. She stared into the empty grate.
"I wonder," said she--"I wonder does the man exist who can bear disappointment without becoming like that."