He walked to the fireplace and pushed back the broken log with his foot. A flame shot out of it, and in the upward glare she saw his pale face, stern with misery.
“Is that all?” he asked.
She made a slight sign with her head and he came slowly back to her. “Then is this to be good-bye?”
Again she signed a faint assent, and he made no effort to touch her or draw nearer. “You understand that I sha’n’t come back?”
He was looking at her, and she tried to return his look, but her eyes were blind with tears, and in dread of his seeing them she got up and walked away. He did not follow her, and she stood with her back to him, staring at a bowl of carnations on a little table strewn with books. Her tears magnified everything she looked at, and the streaked petals of the carnations, their fringed edges and frail curled stamens, pressed upon her, huge and vivid. She noticed among the books a volume of verse he had sent her from England, and tried to remember whether it was before or after...
She felt that he was waiting for her to speak, and at last she turned to him. “I shall see you to-morrow before you go...”
He made no answer.
She moved toward the door and he held it open for her. She saw his hand on the door, and his seal ring in its setting of twisted silver; and the sense of the end of all things came to her.
They walked down the drawing-rooms, between the shadowy reflections of screens and cabinets, and mounted the stairs side by side. At the end of the gallery, a lamp brought out turbid gleams in the smoky battle-piece above it.
On the landing Darrow stopped; his room was the nearest to the stairs. “Good night,” he said, holding out his hand.