She turned back to him and her answer caught up his unfinished phrase. “Ah—you do realize how bad it is? That’s the reason why you’ve given up your job? Because you see that you must go? Are you going now—going at once?”
“Going—going?” He echoed the word in his flat sleep-walking voice. “How on earth can I go?”
The question completely hardened whatever his appearance, the startled beaten look of him, had begun to soften in her. She stood gazing at him and laughed.
“How can you go? Are you mad? Why, what else on earth can you do?”
As he stood before her she began to be aware that he had somehow achieved the attitude of dignity for which she was still struggling. He looked like an unhappy man, a cowed man; but not a guilty one.
“If you’d waited I should myself have asked you to let me explain—” he began.
“Explain? What is there to explain?”
“For one thing, why I can’t go away—go for good, as you suggest.”
“Suggest? I don’t suggest! I order it.”
“Well—I must disobey your order.”