Her shoulders shook as though she had been sobbing, and he forgot himself in the contemplation of her hair. Suddenly he gave a start, as if waking up, and asked very gently and not much above a whisper—
“Have you been meeting him often?”
“Never!” she cried into the palms of her hands.
This answer seemed for a moment to take from him the power of speech. His lips moved for some time before any sound came.
“You preferred to make love here—under my very nose,” he said, furiously. He calmed down instantly, and felt regretfully uneasy, as though he had let himself down in her estimation by that outburst. She rose, and with her hand on the back of the chair confronted him with eyes that were perfectly dry now. There was a red spot on each of her cheeks.
“When I made up my mind to go to him—I wrote,” she said.
“But you didn’t go to him,” he took up in the same tone. “How far did you go? What made you come back?”
“I didn’t know myself,” she murmured. Nothing of her moved but her lips. He fixed her sternly.
“Did he expect this? Was he waiting for you?” he asked.
She answered him by an almost imperceptible nod, and he continued to look at her for a good while without making a sound. Then, at last—