“I’m used up,” he said; “I haven’t a word—not one to throw at a dog.”
“Please don’t throw one at me, then. I surely wouldn’t take it as a compliment.” She made the tea gravely, as absorbed in the work as a little girl who makes tea for her dolls. She brought him his cup and went back to her place and again her face settled into that look. She had evidently forgotten him and her eyes held a vision as of distances.
He put a hand up to break her fixed gaze. “What is it, Jane? What do you see?”
To his astonishment she hid her face in her hands. “It’s awful to live like this,” she moaned; and it frightened him to see her move her head from side to side like an imprisoned beast, shifting before bars.
He looked about the pretty room and repeated, “Like this?” half-reproachfully.
“I hate it!” She spoke through her teeth. “I hate it! And, oh, the sounds, the noises, grinding into your ears.”
Here the hands came to her ears and framed a white, desperate face in which the lids had fallen over sick eyes.
Jasper sat listening to the hum and roar and clatter of the street. To him it was a pleasant sound, and here it was subdued and remote enough. Her face was like that of some one maddened by noise.
“You don’t smell anything fresh”—her chest lifted—“you don’t get air. I can’t breathe. Everything presses in.” She opened her eyes, bright and desperate. “What am I doing here, Mr. Morena?”
He had put down his cup quietly, for he was really half-afraid of her. “Why did you come, Jane?”