“You’re like all women; you want careful treatment at times. Look at this fine hair, this thin skin, these muscles, small, though they are strong; and don’t tell me that you haven’t a nervous temperament.”
“I wonder how they’re getting on at the Pavilion?” she said dreamily.
He looked down at the head lying on his shoulder with an aggrieved expression. “The Pavilion, the Pavilion, always the Pavilion. It doesn’t matter about me.”
“I am afraid to think of you,” she murmured.
“Why?”
“I am frightened, nay, terrified at my own happiness, when there are so many sore hearts in the world.”
“She’s lying, sweet soul,” he communed with himself as he stared at her; “there’s no happiness in her heart. She’s nearly frantic in this decently furnished house and on this quiet street away from her offscourings. It’s like tearing her soul from her body to give them up. Stargarde!”
She did not hear him.
“Am I to lose her now?” he reflected with sudden anguish; “now, on the threshold of happiness? She’s dropping into one of her ‘misery of the world’ agonies, and if she goes off this time! Stargarde,” he said almost roughly dislodging her head from his shoulder and jumping up, “I’m going for a walk.”
“Are you?” she said with languid surprise.