He moved aside, and she came into the room, standing in the lamplight. He stood near her, words, conventional words, driven from his lips by the mad pounding and beating of his heart.
“Might I sit down?” asked the Duchessa a little breathlessly. And she crossed to the settle. Her face was in shadow here, but Antony had seen that it was strangely white.
Still Antony had not spoken.
The Duchessa looked up at him.
“I am nervous,” said she, an odd little tremor in her voice.
“Nervous!” echoed Antony, surprise lending speech to his tongue.
“Nervous,” she replied, the odd little tremor still in her voice. “I owe you an apology, oh, the very deepest apology, and I don’t know how to begin.”
“Don’t begin at all,” said Antony hoarsely, sternly almost.
“Ah, but I must. Think how I spoke to you. You—we had agreed that trust was the very foundation of friendship, and I destroyed the foundation at the outset.”
“It was not likely you could understand,” said Antony.