"You would come!"—a thrust at his one masterful fit, when he had overruled her.
"Well, once you had written ..." and his pause tacitly reminded her of his lukewarmness when Lulu had first propounded the idea.
But their reproachful resentment over the outward inconveniences was genuine. And as for the secret fount of joy——"Anyhow, it's not due to him!" "It's not due to her!" The exact knowledge of it shrined and guarded in Gareth's mind and Kathleen's, was a wound to the vanity of Kathleen and Gareth.
He bent, and took his pile of clothing, brushes, etc.—dropped one or two ... Kathleen restored them to him. Their eyes did not meet—from a sort of shame at the grudging spirit manifested in their short parley——"It's only with him that I'm like that," Kathleen informed herself. And Gareth reflected defensively: "It's only with her...." He wasn't such a—a beast, really. Not up there in the attic—alone.
He turned and stumbled up. She followed him. He stopped dead, and faced round, blocking the entrance....
"I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable."
"I'm not;" he clung to his grievance. "But you can't do anything."
"I might speak to Mrs. Worley; get her to fix up something different...." She was so positive by now that his satisfaction was too great to let him acquiesce in any such suggestion, that she could risk tormenting him ... make him confess his paradise ... it was futile of him to try and deceive her, of all people!
He stood at bay. If once she came in ... it would destroy everything; destroy the peace which had lulled the tired man as though cool fingers were being laid upon the heat and jar of his life hitherto. He realized that she was only prodding him out of harsh amusement; nothing to fear in her threat: she was too glad to be rid of his presence to chance a restoration of it.
"You can't do anything," he repeated.