In a way he was prepared for it but nevertheless he begged for time, for a less unequivocal rejection. But he found her, for the first time, impatient with his pleadings.
“I don't want to go over and over it, Wallie. I'll take the blame. I should have done it long ago.”
She was gentle, almost tender with him, but when he said she had spoiled his life for him she smiled faintly.
“You think that now. And don't believe I'm not sorry. I am. I hate not playing the game, as you say. But I don't think for a moment that you'll go on caring when you know I don't. That doesn't happen. That's all.”
“Do you know what I think?” he burst out. “I think you're still mad about Livingstone. I think you are so mad about him that you don't know it yourself.”
But she only smiled her cool smile and went on with her knitting. After that he got himself in hand, and—perhaps he still had some hope. It was certain that she had not flinched at Dick's name—told her very earnestly that he only wanted her happiness. He didn't want her unless she wanted him. He would always love her.
“Not always,” she said, with tragically cold certainty. “Men are not like women; they forget.”
She wondered, after he had gone, what had made her say that.
She did not tell the family that night. They were full of their own concerns, Nina's coming maternity, the wrapping of packages behind closed doors, the final trimming of the tree in the library. Leslie had started the phonograph, and it was playing “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht.”
Still night, holy night, and only in her was there a stillness that was not holy.