Unhappily for her, Bennett, with more malice, was thinking:
“After all, she is ten years older than I am.”
For the first time he had become dimly aware that the advantage lay with himself. He said:
“I left the office earlier than I had any right to do to meet you. You could not have looked for me.”
“Why will you go on arguing about it?”
“I’ve no wish to argue.”
He only wished to avoid silence, to avoid facing what was irresistibly being borne in upon him, that all his relations with this woman had been a phantasm, a thing of the mists of yesterday. It was a hateful shock to all his theories, to all his ideals of constancy and single-minded devotion. He had worshipped this woman, set her—(at her own suggestion, though he did not know it)—on a pedestal, and lo! a day had come when she was no longer there. The pedestal remained, but the goddess was spirited away. He was very unhappy.
Gertrude was exasperated. She could have slapped him with infinite pleasure. She tapped with her foot on the ground.
“You are being too ridiculous,” she said.
“Am I ever anything else?” returned Bennett, with a sudden plunge into self-torment.