She put her hands over her face and let her tears have way.
“Rhoda,” he exclaimed nervously, “there are two things I can’t bear—a woman angry and a woman crying; but of the two I’d rather have the anger. You are upsetting me dreadfully. I had ever so much rather you told me in plain, knock-down words just what you think of me. If you distress yourself in that way I shall do something absurd, something we shall both of us be sorry for. Really, it was a horrible mistake to come here; why should we have to go through a scene of this kind? You are giving me—and yourself—the most needless pain.”
She rose and sought the door with blinded eyes, as if to go from him at once. Lacour took a step or two towards her, and only with difficulty checked himself.
“Rhoda!” he exclaimed, “you cannot go out in that way. Sit down; do as I tell you!”
She turned, and, seeing his face, threw herself on her knees before him.
“Vincent, have pity on me! You can’t, you won’t, do this! I will kneel at your feet till you promise me to break it off. I can’t bear it! Vincent, I can’t bear it! It will drive me mad if you are married. I can’t live; I shall kill myself! You don’t know what my life has been since we ceased to meet; I couldn’t have lived if I hadn’t had a sort of hope that—oh, I know it’s all my own fault; I said and did things I never should have done; you are blameless. But you cannot marry another woman when you—I mean, not at once, not so soon! It isn’t three months, not three months, since you said you liked me better than any one else you had ever met. Can’t you be sorry for me a little? Look at me—I haven’t even the pride a woman ought to have; I am on my knees to you. Put it off a little while; let me see if I can get to bear it!”
She had caught and held the hand with which he had endeavoured to raise her. The man was in desperate straits; his face was a picture of passionate torment, the veins at his temple blue and swollen, his lips dry and quivering. With an effort of all his strength he raised her bodily, and almost flung her upon the sofa, where she lay with half-closed eyes, pallid, semi-conscious.
“Lie there till you are quiet,” he said with a brutality which was the result of his inner struggle, and not at all an utterance of his real self, “and then go home. I am going out.”
He went into an inner room, and reappeared in a moment equipped for walking. Rhoda had risen, and was before him at the door, standing with her face turned from him.
“Wait till I have been gone a minute,” she said. “Forgive me; I will never come again.”