"Won't you tell me what it is?" he asked, after another long break. "I should be so glad, and grateful—yes, indeed, grateful—if there were anything I could do for you."
She met his eyes, and tried to say something, but no sound came over her lips. She was trying to fasten her thoughts on what she had to say, but, in spite of her efforts, they eluded her. For more than twenty-four hours she had brooded over one idea; the strain had been too great; and, now that the moment had come, her strength deserted her. She would have liked to lay her head on her arms and sleep; it almost seemed to her now, in the indifference of sheer fatigue, that it did not matter whether she spoke or not. But as she looked at the young man, she became conscious of an expression in his face, which made her own grow hard.
"I won't be pitied."
Maurice turned very red. His heart had gone out to her in her distress; and his feelings were painted on his face. His discomfiture at her discovery was so palpable that it gave her courage to go on.
"You were one of those, were you not, who were present at a certain cafe in the BRUHL, one evening, three weeks ago." It was more of a statement than a question. Her eyes held him fast. His retreating colour rose again; he had a presentiment of what was coming.
"Then you must have heard——" she began quickly, but left the sentence unended.
His suspicions took shape, and he made a large, vague gesture of dissent. "You heard all that was said," she continued, without paying any heed to him. "You heard how ... how some one—no, how the man I loved and trusted ... how he boasted about my caring for him; and not only that, but how, before that drunken crowd, he told how I had been to him ... to his room ... that afternoon——" She could not finish, and pressed her knotted handkerchief to her lips.
Maurice looked round him for assistance. "You are mistaken," he declared. "I heard nothing of the kind. Remember, I, too, was among those ... in the state you mention," he added as an afterthought, lowering his voice.
"That is not it." Leaning forward, she opened her eyes so wide that he saw a rim of white round the brown of the pupils. "You must also have heard ... how, all this time, behind my back, there was some one else ... someone he cared for ... when I thought it was only me."
The young man coloured, with her and for her. "It is not true; you have been misled," he said with vehemence. And, again, a flash of intuition suggested an afterthought to him. "Can you really believe it? Don't you think better of him than that?"