"What?" she said, in the merest breath. "What?"
"Because," Peter said, following her, a sort of heady madness making him only conscious of that need to hear from her own lips that she knew, "because I didn't answer that question honestly!"
It mattered not what he said, or what he was trying to express; both were enveloped in the flame of their new relationship; surprise and terror were eclipsing even the strange joy of their discovery.
"I must go home--I must go back to Mart to-morrow!" Cherry said, in a whispered undertone, as if half to herself. "I must go home to Mart to-morrow! I--let's not--let's not talk!" she broke off in quick interruption, as he would have spoken. "Let's--I'd rather not! I--where IS my book? What was I doing? Peter--Peter--"
"Just a minute!" Peter protested, thickly. "Cherry--I want to speak to you--will you wait a minute?"
She was halfway to the door; now she paused, and looked back at him with frightened eyes. Peter did not speak at once; there was a moment of absolute silence.
CHAPTER XIV
And in that moment Alix came in. She had said good-night half an hour before; she was in her wrapper, and her hair fell over one shoulder in a rumpled braid. Cherry, sick with fright, faced her in a sort of horror, unable to realize, at the moment, that there was nothing betraying in her attitude or Peter's, and nothing in her sister's unsuspicious soul to give significance to what she saw in any case. Peter, more quickly recovering self-control, went toward his wife.
Alix saw neither clearly, her eyes were full of tears, and she had a paper in her hand.