Her face changed; a glimmer of light, of mischief, shot across it, and she let her jeweled hands drop in her lap.
“Oui, I danced! Mais que voulez vous? Am I not a dancer? You—it is you who are ashamed, mon ami!” she added bitterly. “Why you marry me, then?”
He threw himself back in his chair, his clenched hand falling on the table with a gesture as poignant as it was desperate.
“You’ve let the cat out of the bag! This place—these provincials! Why, this place is full of it by now. Did you think you were in Paris?”
“In Paris?” she laughed wildly. “Mon Dieu, non! ‘O Paris, c’est chez toi qu’il est doux de vivre, c’est chez toi que je veux mourir!’”
“Drop that chatter!” he said harshly. “You speak English as well as I do.”
She did not answer for a moment; then she leaned across the table, looking at him, her face white and her eyes sparkling.
“You’re ashamed that you married me, a dancer—n’est-ce-pas?”
He averted his face. She caught only the haggard whiteness of the profile, and she saw his hand, stretched on the table, clench and unclench nervously. She drew a long breath.
“You’re ashamed of me,” she said in a low, quivering voice, recoiling from him. “I—I see it!”