'Good-bye, Will! I loved you once very deeply; a few days ago you were everything to me, and for the sake of that love, which has so suddenly perished and is dead for ever, let us part in peace!'
But he turned from her roughly.
'Oh, it is all very well for you!' he said. 'You can afford to talk all this high-falutin' rubbish, and give yourself airs and graces, but I am a poor devil of a fellow always getting into a hole; and it isn't to be supposed that I am going to take my dismissal in this way, just as if I were a lackey. I am your husband, you know; you can't undo that!'
'Not at present,' said Delicia, drawing back from him quickly, the tenderness passing from her face and leaving it coldly disdainful. 'But it is very possible the Gordian knot of marriage may be cut for me sooner or later. Death may befriend me in this matter, if nothing else will.'
'Death! Nonsense! I am not likely to die, nor are you. And I don't see what you want to get a separation for. I will go away for a time if you like. I will make any promises you want me to make; but why you should bring a lawyer into it, I cannot imagine. The fact is, you are making a fuss about nothing, and I am not going to say good-bye at all. I will take a trip abroad, and by the time I come back I daresay all this will have blown over and you will be glad to see me.'
She said nothing, but simply turned from him, and sitting quietly down at her desk resumed the letter she had been writing when he entered.
'Do you hear me?' he repeated querulously. 'I sha'n't say good-bye.'
She did not speak; her pen moved swiftly over the paper before her, but otherwise she never moved.
'I am sure it is no wonder,' he continued crossly, 'that the Government protests against too much independence being allowed to women! What tyrants they would all become if they could have everything their own way as much as you can! Women ought to be gentle and submissive; and if they are fortunate enough to be wealthy, they ought to use their wealth for their husbands' benefit. That is the natural order of creation—woman was made to be subservient to man, and when she is not, things always go wrong.'
Still Delicia wrote on without uttering a word.