She was silent and in a turmoil within.
“Then you’ll give me up?” she asked at last, evenly enough.
“I’ll never give you up, but I’ll never imprison you.”
“It all is the same.” Horatia spoke out of a weary effort to keep dignity, not to break down before the indifference of her lover.
The languor that was all he could have heard in her voice was hard on him. Langley put his head on his hands and hid the agony in his face.
“I told you once that you loved the romance you found in me,” he said without resentment. “Well, I’ve destroyed the romance. I’m just ordinary, cheap, uninspiring. But I’m not going to make you ordinary or cheap. There’s so much romance left for you to find.”
She stood up and struck her hands together angrily.
“Don’t mock at me.”
“For God’s sake, Horatia, I wasn’t mocking.”
“Let me go—I will go now. I’ll go—on my vacation.”