They went to an hotel together and dined, and listened to a band which was making music, and they talked nonsensically about the food they were eating and the people they saw, and all the time her heart was crying to him to drop the terrible mask of gaiety and tell her his sorrow. But as she saw he meant to play the game she told him of her journey, and the portrait that was hanging in the gallery, and she said that she had kissed the fauns good-bye. And then quite suddenly she stopped, because she saw a look of such pain come into his eyes that for the moment she was dumb, and pretence seemed useless. But almost at once he laughed and made some little light speech; and she laughed too, and bravely, because she knew he wished it.
But when at last they were back in the studio she could play the terrible little game no longer. And he too knew that the moment had come for it to cease.
“Paul,” she said steadily, “what is it?”
“You guessed?” he asked.
“My dear,” she said, with a sad laugh, “I knew at once.”
“Then the harlequin game has been no good,” he said. And so he told her. And when he had ended there was a long silence.
Sara was the first to break it.
“There is no need for me to tell you,” she said, “that this makes no difference to our love.”
“But,” said Paul, and in spite of himself his voice was bitter, “it does to our marriage. There is no way out.”
And with the words silence again fell. And in the silence Sara felt a slow hatred of Giuseppe creep into her heart. He could have made this happiness possible to her, and he had made it impossible.