Then his face grew suddenly red with a wave of blood and he was as wide awake as Medora herself.
He did not mince his words.
“Go back to bed, Medora, at once! You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re dreaming—sleep-walking—surely. You mean it innocently. I’ll explain in the morning. Please, please go—instantly, Medora.”
She stared at him, stood upright and did not immediately obey his command to depart.
“We don’t want to look back at this great thing we have done and feel any shadow upon it,” he declared. “We want to be able to look into each other’s faces and know that we have nothing whatever, before God or man, to reproach ourselves with. We’ve started on the highest plane and we’ll keep on the highest plane. You understand me. Indeed the beautiful thing has always been that we do understand each other so perfectly. So—please, Medora.”
She did not answer, but obeyed. Burning and shaking to her very bones she vanished and slammed the door behind her; then she leapt into her bed and huddled under the clothes in a fury. But she did not hate herself long; she hated Kellock. It took Medora till five o’clock in the morning to cool down. An incident contributed to return of calm, because, after she had left him, the man turned on his electric light—she saw it under the door. And apparently he kept it on. She could also hear him walking about. It was clear therefore that she had disturbed him a good deal.
“I wonder he didn’t turn over and go to sleep again,” she reflected bitterly.
It was long before she forgave him.
“Even if he didn’t want me, he oughtn’t to have said so,” reflected Medora. “He ought to have pretended he was glad. To send me away like a naughty school child after all I’ve done for him!”
She determined that he must be punished and decided that she would not get up at all next day, but stop in her room and pretend to be ill. And in a thousand other ways she would punish him also. He should see that she could be as frosty as he. Indeed he had frozen her effectually now. And she told herself that it would be a very long time before she thawed again.