“Still more, one must know them to tell them.”
“You are sitting there, and not accusing me of something?”
“I am heaping dust on my own head for a fool,” he groaned. “Give me time, and you shall know.”
She leaned back and stared at the fire, conscious of a thrill, but not the thrill she expected. Wareham’s words hinting at a wall between them raised immediate discontent, for obstacles should be cleared when she was wooed. And she had set herself this day as the limit of the time accorded him, believing it possible that she might yield to impetuosity. To this sluggish demand—never! It was not for this that she could give up what she felt it was heroic to reject. She was colder now than five minutes ago.
Wareham, not yet enlightened, and imagining himself to have told only too much, leaned half across the table which was between them.
“Will you wait?” he breathed. The words, “Only a few days,” almost choked him.
Anne’s “I cannot,” was inexorable, stunning. She rose up directly and went to the window, expecting to have raised a tempest, and for a moment again, perhaps irresolute. He stood, but did not follow her, and she felt angrily indignant that her power was not equal to breaking the silence. To hide the humiliation, she said lightly—
“Let us go before another storm begins.”
Had she looked at him, pity might have stirred, but she went out of the room without turning her head.
Wareham followed.