“I do not understand,” he said. “For God’s sake, speak! I do not want to lose control of myself, but I cannot forget that you have been my wife.”
These words, which moved him so that he shook visibly, made apparently no impression upon her. Her breathing was so scant and so light as scarcely to lift the lace upon her breast; and, near as he was to her, he could not hear it. Was she, perhaps, unconscious? He might have thought so, but for the deep, intense consciousness in the gaze that she fixed upon him, and the flutter of her long-lashed lids as she shut and opened them occasionally from the strain of that prolonged look.
Outside, the drum throbbed distantly, like the beating of a great excited heart. The thin call of a trumpet sounded keenly like a sigh of pain. Nearer the tramp of men and horses could be heard. But all these things only made them feel more absolutely alone together—this man and this woman who had once been one in marriage! With his breast heaving quickly with deep, uneven breaths, he suddenly uttered her name in a thick whisper.
Still she remained as she had been before, motionless and wordless, while he read her eyes. He dropped his stick, and seized her hands in both his own, which were cold and shaking.
“Speak!” he said commandingly. “In God’s name, what do you mean, unless it is that you love me still?”
Her hands were quiet and nerveless in his grasp, and in another instant he would have lost control and consciousness of what he was doing. But at this very moment the cabman called to his horse and cracked his whip, the carriage gave a lurch forward, and they rattled rapidly away.
Recollecting himself, Harold dropped the hands which he had seized so recklessly, and touched the springs of the curtains, which instantly flew up, letting in the full light of day.
The fresh air which came in seemed to calm his heated blood, and he was master of himself again.
When he turned to look at his companion, she was leaning back in exactly the same position, only her heavy, richly fringed white lids were dropped over her eyes.
In this way she remained quite still until the carriage stopped before the door of her apartment. Harold, who thought that she had now really fainted, was about to summon help from the concierge, when she opened her eyes with a look of entire self-possession in them, got out of the cab without the aid of his offered hand, and, bowing her thanks, without speaking walked past him into the house, with a look of cool dismissal which made it impossible for him to follow.