“Do you know,” he went on in a murmur so inarticulate that only her ears, that knew his voice as they knew her own, could catch it, “we’ve been miserable every moment since we’ve been in this place. Let’s get out! For heaven’s sake, come up to town to-morrow, and we’ll be married, and get away to the other side of the earth!”
She had a hysterical desire to laugh.
“Oh, Tony, you’re the only man in the world who could say a thing like that, in a situation like this.”
He grumbled, “Why not? I mean it.”
She knew he meant it. She suffered in the temptation to say yes, to end everything like that, to take what consequences followed when he should some day know, and hate her for it. She looked at Julia. Not alone the beauty of her, but some suggestion in its generous richness of a like nature, made the rest of them seem cheap. Florence felt faded as she looked. What a woman for a man to lose!
Longacre’s eyes followed the direction Florence’s had taken. He made an impatient movement.
If he stayed a few days longer under the girl’s spell, he would find out himself how hard matters were with him. But before that happened he must be free of her. It came to Florence all at once that this man would not free himself. What a loyalty to lose! And to put it away with her own hands!
“Florence!” he persisted. She meant to say that she had something to tell him later that would answer his question, but her tongue tricked her into a gay evasion. She put him off. Because she saw the end must come, soon or late, she put it off. She would tell him to-morrow.