Robert Grimshaw recoiled a minute step.
“Oh, I don’t mean,” she said, “because it’s your fault, but simply—I can’t think any more. It’s too lonely, yet I can’t talk about it. I can’t.”
Mr. Held, his mouth wide open with agony, glided out of the room, squeezing his ascetic hands together.
“But ...” Robert Grimshaw said.
“Oh, I know,” she answered. “I did talk to you about it. But it does not somehow seem to be right any more. Don’t you understand? Not only because it isn’t delicate or it doesn’t seem the right thing to talk about one’s relations with one’s husband, but simply ... I can’t. I can keep things going; I can run the house and keep it all dark.... But is he going to get well, or isn’t he? We know nothing. And I can’t face the question alone. I can do things. It drives me mad to have to think about them. And I’ve no one to talk to, not a relation, not a soul in the world.”
“You aren’t angry with me?” Grimshaw asked.
“Angry!” she answered, with almost a touch of contempt in her voice. “Good heavens! I’d dust your shoes for all you’ve done for us, and for all you’re doing. But you’ve got to do more. You’ve got to do much more. And you have to do it alone.”
“But ...” Robert Grimshaw said.
Pauline remained silent. She began again to chafe Dudley Leicester’s hands between her little palms. Suddenly she looked hard at Grimshaw.
“Don’t you understand?” she said. “I do, if you don’t, see where we’re coming to.” His face expressed a forced want of comprehension, as if he were afraid. She looked remorselessly into his eyes.