The waiter nodded and went out.
“Now, what have I done!” exclaimed Gloria, as she tore off her gloves, her hat, and her sack, and threw them angrily on the bed. “Now, what have I done! Oh, Marcel! I will never, never, no, NEVER forgive you for driving me to this pass! Oh! how I hate you! How I hate you for this, Marcel! And I hate David Lindsay! And I hate myself worse than all! My odious self! I hate everybody! And I wish everybody was dead! I do!” she cried, flinging herself down on the floor, and rolling and crying like a passionate child.
It is of no use to repeat all her ravings.
David Lindsay was more than half right in his surmises, and Gloria was really more than half insane.
She was still rolling and crying on the carpet, when the shuffling steps of the waiter approaching the door, caused her to start up in time to answer his knock.
She placed herself behind the door, opened it, put out her hand and took the little tea-tray, without showing her own tear-stained face.
She drank the tea with eager thirst, and then sat down the empty cup and threw herself on the sofa.
“The cup that cheers,” and so forth, seemed to do her good, and perhaps her fit of hysterical weeping had temporarily exhausted itself, for she wept and raved no more, but lay, with her hands clasped over her face, in perfect stillness.
An hour later there was a knock at her door. She started up and opened it, and David Lindsay entered the room.
She recoiled to the farthest corner, and sat down and hid her head over the back of the chair.