“I don’t think you do,” she answered, meekly.
“But my—my—dear Mrs. Jones—the su-superb Mrs. Delilah Jo-Jones ought to be sure that I do. Here, bring me a light: that dam—dam—cigar’s gone out.”
She rose quietly and carried the candle to Abel. There was an inexpressible weariness and pathos in all her movements: a kind of womanly tranquillity that was touchingly at variance with the impression of her half-coarse appearance. As Abel watched her he remembered the women whom he had tried to marry. His memory scoured through his whole career. He thought of them all variously happy.
“I swear! to think I should come to you!” he said at length, looking at his companion, with an indescribable bitterness of sneering.
Kitty Dunham sat at a little distance from him on the end of a sofa. She was bowed as if deeply thinking; and when she heard these words her head only sank a little more, as if a palpable weight had been laid upon her. She understood perfectly what he meant.
“I know I am not worth loving,” she said, in the same low voice, “but my love will do you no harm. Perhaps I can help you in some way. If you are ill some day, I can nurse you. I shall be poor company on the long journey, but I will try.”
“What long journey?” asked Abel, suddenly and angrily.
“Where we are going,” she replied, gently.
“D—— it, then, don’t use such am-am-big-’us phrases. A man would think we were go-going to die.”
She said no more, but sat, half-crouching, upon the sofa, looking into the fire. Abel glanced at her, from time to time, with maudlin grins and sneers.