Her arms were tightly clasped around his neck, and her wistful, eager face—the piteous brown eyes moist and beseeching—were close to his. But beauty that has palled no longer possesses power. Sentimental appeals to honour and loyalty were very troublesome; while the reference to an imaginary link that was to be held binding upon him for evermore was merely vexing.
"You're a good, sweet little soul," he said, rather testily, unclasping her arms—"no one knows that better than I do—and I should have supposed, therefore, that you would be the last to suggest that we should continue our life together without mutual love. On the contrary, a woman of your moral excellence ought not to be willing to consent to such a proceeding. And, what's more, you mustn't blame me, you know. Remember your own wise words, 'We can't arrange our feelings, our affections, according to what would be, perhaps, the most conducive to a quiet life.' We may all be but the sport of the gods, but let's go on strike against taking part in any tragedies for the entertainment of the higher powers. Let's insist on being merely comedians. We will say good-bye smilingly, and thus snap our fingers at Fate."
Evarne twisted her hands together helplessly. She had much to say, so much, but further speech was beyond her power.
Her throat swelled, she bit the inside of her lower lip pitilessly to stay its quivering, but was scarcely conscious of the tears that poured down her cheeks unheeded. After a minute's futile struggle to retain some show of self-command, she moved away a step or two, sank into an armchair, buried her face in the cushions, and sobbed without restraint.
A tumultuous medley of wild impassioned ideas surged within her brain, incomplete thoughts, disconnected and rapidly cast aside. But, amid them all, were none urging calm submission, dignified resignation. On the contrary, all alike were directed on evolving some method of warding off this unendurable blow—or, at least, since it had fallen, of nullifying its effects.
The thing seemed so incredible, unreal, impossible, the end of all life. She resolutely declined to admit that there was nothing whatsoever to be done; she could not consent to allow all hope to leave her. And yet—yet—immovable and grim, the bedrock underlying these wild surgings of despised and deserted love, was the conviction that her richest store of eloquence, the whole of her most intense and protracted efforts, would prove powerless to alter the inevitable. Distracted, tortured, she gasped between her sobs—
"I shall kill myself."
Morris was just in the act of stealing softly from the room. Looking rather foolish, he turned sharply, and crossed over to her side.
"Tut, tut! You don't know what you're saying now, you're talking wildly," he declared soothingly. "You really mustn't take things so to heart. You'll make yourself quite ill. Go and lie down quietly, and I'll send Bianca in to you with a cup of tea."
"You think I don't know what I'm saying, but I know that I'm not saying half I feel," she declared truthfully enough. Then, after a moment's further reflection, her momentary composure again gave way. "Oh, how could you make me love you, only to treat me like this? It was cruel, brutal! How can I bear it?"