The man went on his way without lifting his hat. Dorothea hastened in.
Daniel was trembling in his whole body. There was something in his eyes that seemed to be beseeching; and there was something mystic about them. He watched until the light had been lighted upstairs and the window shade drawn. He was tortured by the stillness of the Square; when the clock in the tower struck eleven he thought he could hear the blood roaring in his ears.
It was only with difficulty that he dragged himself into the house. Dorothea, already in her night-gown, was sitting at the table in the living room, sewing a ribbon on the dress she had just been wearing: it had somehow got loose.
They spoke to each other. Daniel stood behind her, near the stove, and looked over at the back of her bared neck as if held by a spell. One cold shiver after another was running through his body.
“Who gave you those ostrich feathers?” he asked, suddenly and rather brusquely. The question slipped from his lips before he himself was aware of it. He would have liked to say something else.
Dorothea raised her head with a jerk. “I thought I told you,” she replied, and he noticed that she coloured up.
“I cannot believe that a perfect stranger, and a woman at that, is making you such costly presents,” said Daniel slowly.
Dorothea got up, and looked at him rather undecidedly. “Very well, if you simply must know, I bought them myself,” she said with unusual defiance. “But you don’t need to try to browbeat me like that; I’ll get the money that I paid for them. And you needn’t think for a minute that I am going to let you draw up a family budget, and expect to make me live by it.”
“You didn’t buy those feathers,” said Daniel, cutting her off in the middle of her harangue.
“I didn’t buy them, and they were not given to me! How did I get them then? Stole them perhaps?” Dorothea was scornful; but cowardice made it impossible for her to look Daniel in the face.