"To be sure!"
"It is good-bye. You understand me? If, after this, you imagine an engagement between us, you have only yourself to blame."
"I take the responsibility." He released her hand, and made a stiff bow. "In three days, I shall call."
"You will not see me."
"Perhaps not. Then, three days later. Nothing whatever is changed between us. A little discussion of this sort is all to the good. Plainly, you have thought me a much weaker man than I am: when that error of judgment is removed, our relations will be better than ever."
The temptation to say one word more overcame Irene's finer sense of the becoming. Jacks had already taken his hat, and was again bowing, when she spoke.
"You are so sure that your will is stronger than mine?"
"Perfectly sure," he replied, with superb tranquillity.
No one had ever seen, no one again would ever see, that face of high disdainful beauty, pain-stricken on the fair brow, which Irene for a moment turned upon him. As he withdrew, the smile that lurked behind her scorn glimmered forth for an instant, and passed in the falling of a tear.
She went to her room, and lay down. The sleep she had not dared to hope for fell upon her whilst she was trying to set her thoughts in order. She slept until eight o'clock; her headache was gone.