"Won't you sit down?" she asked, and dumbly he sat. "I hear you were in Normandy," she went on smoothly. "Did you have a good summer? You did leave us rather abruptly at Westport, didn't you? But then you know, of course, I understood that—"
"Hermia," he broke in in a low voice. "What has happened to you? Why didn't you answer my letters. I've been nearly mad with anxiety." He leaned forward toward her, the words falling in a torrent. But she only examined him curiously, a puzzled wrinkle at her brows vying with the set smile she still wore.
"Your letters, Mr. Markham!" she said in surprise. "Oh! You mean the note about the sketch of Thimble Island? I did reply, didn't I? It was awfully nice—"
"Good God!" he muttered, rising. "Haven't you punished me enough now, without this—" with a wave of his hand—"this extravaganza. Haven't I paid? I searched Paris high and low for you, Hermia, haunted your bankers and the hotel where you had been stopping, only returning here at the moment when my engagements in New York made it necessary. Has it been kind of you, or just to ignore my letters and leave me all these weeks in anxiety and ignorance? I've missed you horribly—and I feared—nameless things—that you had forgotten me, that you wanted everything forgotten." As he came forward she rose and took a step toward an inner room, her eyes still narrowed and quizzical, watching him carefully.
"Hermia—Hermia!" He stopped, the tension breaking in a laugh. "Oh, you want to punish me, of course. Don't you think you've paid me well already? See! I'm penitent. What do you want? Shall I go down on my knees to you. I have been on my knees to you for weeks—you must have know it. My letters—"
He paused and then stopped, puzzled, for she had not moved and her gaze surveyed him, coolly critical.
"You got my letters?" he asked anxiously.
She was silent.
"I've written you every day—since you left me—poured my heart out to you. You didn't get them? O Hermia, you must have known what life has been without you. Do you think I could forget what I read in your eyes that day in the forest? Could you forget what you wrote there? Only your lips refused me. Even when they refused me, they were warm with my kisses. They were mine, as you were, body and soul. You loved me, Hermia—from the first. These flimsy barriers you're raising, I'll break them down—and take you—"
As he approached, she reached the curtains, one hand upraised.