It sang about her like a flute. Something else was singing, not the bird in her throat, for she had hushed it, but a bird in her heart. It had been singing ever since he had entered the room. It had been singing with her the duo of which lightly she had spoken. But it was singing too loud.
Hastily she replaced the score, pulled at another, shoved it back.
"Won't you tell me?" Lennox was asking.
It will burst, she thought. Sidling from the bench, she went to the sofa, looked at it as though she had never seen it before, and sat down.
"Won't you?" he repeated.
She glanced over at him. Apparently now she was calm as you please.
"People marry out of optimism, or at any rate I did. I have had my lesson, thank you."
Lennox stood up. "You have suffered——"
"I read somewhere," she cut in, "that we have to suffer terribly before we learn not to suffer at all." Pausing, she added: "I suppose then we are dead."
She was getting away from it and he rounded on her.