Then, suddenly, she saw how he was driven.
He was out on the first mad hunt with love. Love and he stalked the hills, questing the visionary maid.
It was not she. His trouble was as yet vague and purely impersonal. She saw (it was her business) by every infallible sign and token that it was not she. She saw, too, that he was enraged with her for this reason, that it was not she. That showed that he was approaching headlong the point of danger; and she, if she were his friend, was bound to keep him back. He was not in love with her or with any one, but he was in that insane mood when honourable men marry, sometimes disastrously. Any woman, even she, could draw him to her now by holding out her hand.
And between them there came a terror, creeping like a beast of prey, dumb, and holding them dumb. She searched for words to dispel it, but no words came; her heart beat too quickly; he must hear it beat. That was not the signal he was waiting for, that beating of her heart.
He tried to give himself the semblance and the sense of ease by walking about the room and examining the things in it. There were some that it had lacked before, signs that the young novelist had increased in material prosperity. Yes. He had liked her better when she had worked harder and was as poor as he. They had come to look on poverty as their protection from the ruinous world. He now realized that it had also been their protection from each other. He was too poor to marry.
He reflected with some bitterness that Jane was not, now.
She in her corner called him from his wanderings. She had made the coffee. He drank it where he stood, on the hearthrug, ignoring his old place on the sofa by her side.
She brooded there, leaving her cup untasted. She had man[oe]uvred to keep him. And now she wished that she had let him go.
"Aren't you going to drink your coffee?" he said.
"No. I shan't sleep if I do."