She got up and left the room.
He looked after her in some surprise, and sat still for a moment. Then it occurred to him.
"I believe her galoshes are in the passage outside her door," he said, and hurried after her.
I sat back, thinking it over. There had been a sweetness in her face as she said, "Yes, you're very silent." Had she seen through me and my pretext for reading to her? Of course she had. She was no fool. I was the fool, nobody else. I should have driven a sportsman to despair. Some practice the sport of making conquests and the sport of making love, because they find it so agreeable; I have never practiced sport of any kind. I have loved and raged and suffered and stormed according to my nature--that is all; I am an old-fashioned man. And here I sit in the shadow of evening, the shadow of the half-century. Let me have done!
The actor returned to the living room confused and dejected. She had turned him out; she had wept.
I was not surprised, for it was the mode of expression of her type.
"Have you ever heard the like of it? She told me to get out! I shall leave tomorrow."
"Have you found the galoshes?" I asked.
"Of course," he replied. "They were right in the passage. 'Here they are,' I said to her. 'Yes, yes,' she said. 'Right under your nose,' I said. 'Yes, yes, go away,' she said, and began to cry. So I went away."
"She'll get over it."