On the way home, in the deserted winter dusk, Westall surprised his wife by a sudden boyish pressure of her arm. “Did I open their eyes a bit? Did I tell them what you wanted me to?” he asked gaily.
Almost unconsciously, she let her arm slip from his. “What I wanted—?”
“Why, haven’t you—all this time?” She caught the honest wonder of his tone. “I somehow fancied you’d rather blamed me for not talking more openly—before— You’ve made me feel, at times, that I was sacrificing principles to expediency.”
She paused a moment over her reply; then she asked quietly: “What made you decide not to—any longer?”
She felt again the vibration of a faint surprise. “Why—the wish to please you!” he answered, almost too simply.
“I wish you would not go on, then,” she said abruptly.
He stopped in his quick walk, and she felt his stare through the darkness.
“Not go on—?”
“Call a hansom, please. I’m tired,” broke from her with a sudden rush of physical weariness.
Instantly his solicitude enveloped her. The room had been infernally hot—and then that confounded cigarette smoke—he had noticed once or twice that she looked pale—she mustn’t come to another Saturday. She felt herself yielding, as she always did, to the warm influence of his concern for her, the feminine in her leaning on the man in him with a conscious intensity of abandonment. He put her in the hansom, and her hand stole into his in the darkness. A tear or two rose, and she let them fall. It was so delicious to cry over imaginary troubles!