“Quaerts!”
How short it sounded! A name like the smack of a hard hand. There was something bad, something cruel in the name:
“Quaerts, Quaerts!...”
She threw down the bit of pasteboard, was angry with herself. She felt cold and not herself, just as she had felt at the Van Attemas’ last evening:
“I will not go out again. Never again, never!” she said, almost aloud. “I am so contented in my own house, so contented with my life, so beautifully happy.... That card! Why should he leave a card? What do I want with his card?...”
She sat down at her writing-table and opened her blotting-book. She thought of finishing a half-written letter to India; but she was in quite a different mood from when she had begun it. So she took from a drawer a thick manuscript-book, her diary. She wrote the date, then reflected a moment, tapping her teeth nervously with the silver penholder....
But then, with a little ill-tempered gesture, she threw down the pen, pushed the book aside and, letting her head fall into her hands on the blotting-book, sobbed aloud.