“Perfectly,” said I.
“You know you said—”
“I have said so many things!”
“But this was that you—you loved me well enough to—give me up.”
And the silly ego in me—the endless and incorrigible I—imagined her pouting for a withdrawal of those brave words.
“I not only said it,” I declared, “but I meant every word of it.”
None the less had I to turn from her to hide my anguish. I leaned my elbows on the narrow stone chimney-piece, which, with the grate below and a small mirror above, formed an almost solitary oasis in the four walls of books. In the mirror I saw my face; it was wizened, drawn, old before its time, and merely ugly in its sore distress, merely repulsive in its bloody bandages. And in the mirror also I saw Rattray, handsome, romantic, audacious, all that I was not, nor ever would be, and I “understood” more than ever, and loathed my rival in my heart.
I wheeled round on Eva. I was not going to give her up—to him. I would tell her so before him—tell him so to his face. But she had turned away; she was listening to some one else. Her white forehead glistened. There were voices in the hall.
“Mr. Cole! Mr. Cole! Where are you, Mr. Cole?”
I moved over to the locked door. My hand found the key. I turned round with evil triumph in my heart, and God knows what upon my face. Rattray did not move. With lifted hands the girl was merely begging him to go by the door that was open, down the stair. He shook his head grimly. With an oath I was upon them.