"Won't you have anything before you go?" he said.
She shook her head.
"Good-night!" she said almost inaudibly.
For a moment—no longer—her hand lay in his. She did not look at him. There was something in his touch that thrilled through her like an electric current.
But his grave "Good-night!" had in it nothing startling, and by the time she reached her own room she had begun to ask herself what cause there had been for her agitation. She was sure he must have thought her very strange, very abrupt, even ungracious.
And at that her heart smote her, for he had been kinder that evening than ever before. The fragrance of the lilies at her breast reminded her how kind.
She bent her head to them, and suddenly, as though the flowers exhaled some potent charm, impulse—blind, domineering impulse—took possession of her.
She turned swiftly to the door, and in a moment her feet were bearing her, almost without her voluntary effort, back to the room she had left.
The door was unlatched. She pushed it open, entering impetuously. And she came upon Caryl suddenly—as he had come upon her that afternoon—sunk in a chair by the window, with his head in his hands.