Suddenly, her sobbing ceased; and she faced him--this Aliette he could not understand--dry-eyed and venomous.
"Have your revenge on him if you want to. But don't pretend you're being just. Don't pretend you're being heroic. Don't pretend you're any better than he is. You're not. He's a man, just the same as you are. You talk about my freedom. You say scandal doesn't matter. Perhaps it doesn't--to a man. Perhaps it oughtn't to matter to me, I've belonged to two----"
At that, for the first and last time in their lives, Aliette was physically afraid of her lover. His arms, which had been seeking to comfort, abandoned her. He sprang to his feet. Jealousy, a red and angry aura of jealousy, exuded from him.
"Christ!" he burst out, "Christ! You needn't remind me of that."
Speech died at his lips. Furiously he strode from her--strode up and down the familiar room, the room in which, months since, she had given her unspoken promise to Julia Cavendish. The scene came back to her now. She thought, "What have I been saying? Dear God, what have I been saying?" Hysteria went out of her, as fever goes out, leaving her weak, nerveless.
"Damn it!" he was muttering, "damn it! Do you think I ever forget that once--once----"
She wanted to cry out to him, "I didn't mean to hurt you. You're hurting me now, hurting me beyond all bearing." But she knew that, hurt, she dared not cry out; knew that this was the hardest of the path, the full price, the full torment exacted.
Sitting there, rigid, uncomplaining, teeth bit to the under lip lest the mouth should cry out its torture, she remembered the long years with Hector, the mornings and the evenings when, facing him over the breakfast-table or the dinner-table, listening after dinner to his voice in the library, tolerating--for the sake of the dream which this other man had made true--the ungentle fury of his caresses, she had learned to wear the mask which so many married women wear, the mask of compliance.
Must she, for Ronnie's sake, still wear the mask? Daren't she tell him--the truth? Wouldn't he--knowing the truth--flinch from his purpose? Wasn't it worth while, more than worth while, to keep silence till the die was cast? Couldn't she still play for time? Time! There might be some way--some other way to freedom. If only she weren't so afraid--so strangely and newly afraid! If only Ronnie were not so angry!
And suddenly she knew that Ronnie's anger had left him. His feet stopped in mid-stride. Slowly he came across the room toward her; and she could see a little of the old understanding tenderness in his blue eyes. "Alie," he said, "forgive me."