"Well, you know, I was not able to. Circumstances did not permit me to answer it."
"I was afraid of that."
She suddenly looked up at him with an expression of hopelessness in her fine eyes.
"Bernard," she said, "sometimes I think you will never, never be able to keep your promise to me!"
"Why not?" John asked, feeling his way cautiously. He could see that she was stirred, that something had moved her deeply. He was more than ever assured of this when she rose, stood before him, and looked steadily into his face.
"Oh! Bernard, if you could only, only fight!"
Under the close scrutiny of her eyes John felt extraordinarily uncomfortable.
"Other people have fought and have conquered," went on the girl. "Why should not you? Sometimes," she went on, "you are quite as you should be, just as you are now—the man who once won my love. And then, again——" She broke off.
Accidentally John had put his fingers in his waistcoat pocket. He felt the contact of the little bottle of cocaine tabloids Manners had forced upon him. He had guessed that Elaine was referring to Treves's enslavement to this drug, and he drew out the bottle, holding it in the palm of his hand. He saw the girl look at the tabloids with an expression of loathing; then something seemed to pass through her that drew her rigid and erect.
"I wonder," she said, "in our very short months together, how often you have promised, have sworn, to give it up!" Her manner suddenly changed again, and she held out her hand imploringly. "I wonder, Bernard, if you have the courage to give them to me?"