“Deane,” he said anxiously, “I hope that you do not believe that I have intended to invade your personal affairs. I am concerned only with Martin’s development. I truly desire his life to be a complete and happy one.”
“Then please tell me what you want.” Deane made an uneasy little gesture.
For one lost moment, Roberts’ pallid cheeks were covered as though by the light of a beautiful, dark flame and he leaned across the table with a desperate, hopeless lust.
“You know what I want, Deane. You have always known.” Now, he was breathless and the color left his face, leaving him whiter and more distraught than before.
Deane sat erect. There was more than anger in her expression. There was the fury and the cruelty of all her sex against what she believed to be the pitiful, crippled shade of themselves—against the mist of a forever-damned kinship which thought as woman thought, desired with woman’s desire, and still was mist, without substance, without gratification. Deane’s voice was barely audible.
“Never,” she whispered.
At her expression and her exclamation, Roberts wet his lips and trembled slightly in his chair, gazing at her as though in some enchantment.
“Never?” he asked, in a voice as low as her own, but with the quality of a protesting and bewildered child.
“Roberts!” Deane spoke so sharply that he was shaken from his spell and sat more normally, looking at her now with quiet speculation. “What is it you wish me to do? I see no reason to protract a conversation so unpleasant.”
The adviser met her glance with restraint.