“I told you last week that they didn’t please me.”
“Last week? Oh—” He seemed to make an effort of memory. “I thought you were nervous then; you sent for the doctor the next day.”
“It was not the doctor I needed; it was your assurance—”
“My assurance?”
Suddenly she felt the floor fail under her. She sank into the chair with a choking throat, her words, her reasons slipping away from her like straws down a whirling flood.
“Clement,” she cried, “isn’t it enough for you to know that I hate it?”
He turned to close the door behind them; then he walked toward her and sat down. “What is it that you hate?” he asked gently.
She had made a desperate effort to rally her routed argument.
“I can’t bear to have you speak as if—as if—our marriage—were like the other kind—the wrong kind. When I heard you there, the other afternoon, before all those inquisitive gossiping people, proclaiming that husbands and wives had a right to leave each other whenever they were tired—or had seen some one else—”
Westall sat motionless, his eyes fixed on a pattern of the carpet.