“No.” There was a movement in her throat as though she swallowed something hard. “No. I want you to be happy.”
“You don’t. You want me to be rather miserable.”
“Robin!” She contrived a sound like laughter. But Robin didn’t laugh; his eyes, morose and cynical, held her there.
“That’s what you want.... At least I hope you do. If you didn’t——”
She fenced off the danger. “Do you want me to be miserable, then?”
At that he laughed out. “No. I don’t. I don’t care how happy you are.”
She took the pain of it: the pain he meant to give her.
That evening he hung over Priscilla with a deliberate, exaggerated tenderness.
“Dear.... Dearest....” He spoke the words to Priscilla, but he sent out his voice to Harriett. She could feel its false precision, its intention, its repulse of her.
She was glad to be gone.