“But your wife?” said Rose.
This time her voice was hoarse but she did not know it. She had lost the consciousness of herself. It was a profound moment, the deepest she had so far known, and all the forces of her being were concentrated upon it. The young man answered with deliberation, still not moving.
“I don’t want to see my wife. We are—we are—uncongenial. There is nothing but unhappiness between us.”
“Don’t you love her?” said the girl.
“No. I never did,” he answered.
For a moment neither dared speak. They did not look at each other or stir. They hardly seemed to breathe. A movement, a touch, would have rent the last thin crust of reserve that covered what were no longer unsuspected fires. Dominick knew it, but the girl did not. She was seized by what to her was a sudden, inexplicable fear, and the increased, suffocating beating of her heart made her feel dizzy. She suddenly wished to fly, to escape from the room, and him, and herself. She turned to go and was arrested by Cora’s voice in the hall:
“Say, you folks, are you in there?”
Cora’s visage followed her voice. She thrust it round the door-post, beamingly smiling under a recently-applied coat of powder.
“Do you want to tackle a game of euchre? Mr. Willoughby and I’ll lay you out cold unless that British memory of his has gone back on him and he’s forgot all I taught him last time.”
They were too bewildered to make any response. Rose gathered up her coat and dropped it again, looking stupidly from it to the intruder. Cora turned back to the passage, calling,