She switched on the light in the big lamp, but instead of taking the chair indicated, sank into one on the opposite side of the table, with the mellow light full upon her lovely, serious face.
“Sit there,” she said, signifying the chair he had requested her to take. “Please sit down,” she went on impatiently, as he continued to regard her forbiddingly from his position near the window.
“I shall be better able to say what I have to say standing,” he said significantly.
“Do you expect me to plead with you for forgiveness?” she inquired, with an unmistakable look of surprise.
“You may save yourself the humiliation of such——”
“But you are gravely mistaken,” she interrupted. “I shall ask nothing of you.”
“Then we need not prolong the———”
“I have come to explain, not to plead,” she went on resolutely. “I want to tell you why I married you. You will not find it a pleasant story, nor will you be proud of your conquest. It will not be necessary for you to turn me out of your house. I entered it with the determination to leave it in my own good time. I think you had better sit down.”
He looked at her fixedly for a moment, as if striving to materialise a thought that lay somewhere in the back of his mind. He was vaguely conscious of an impression that he could unfathom all this seeming mystery without a suggestion from her if given the time to concentrate his mind on the vague, hazy suggestion that tormented his memory.
He sat down opposite her and rested his arms on the table. The lines about his mouth were rigid, uncompromising, but there was a look of wonder in his eyes.