"I was frightened," she pleaded. "I did not think—it would have happened just the same had it been a stranger, and not Mr. Conway."
"Ah, no!" he sneered, beside himself with jealous passion. "I have learned, too late, that your marriage with me was one of ambition and pride. There was love in the look you gave him, Grace—such love as you have never accorded me."
He was walking excitedly up and down the floor, never even glancing at her. She sighed bitterly, pillowing her burning cheek against her child, as though to gather strength before she spoke again.
"You are mistaken; it was fright, alarm, foolish nervousness; not love, God knows; anything else but that! I do not know how to please you, my husband. You are fearfully, causelessly jealous—oh! what did you want me to do?"
"I did not want you to touch him; I did not want you to speak to him or notice him. I am jealous, Grace," stopping suddenly beside her, and gathering all her long fair ringlets into his hands, and lifting one bright tendril caressingly to his lips—"so jealous that I am almost angry with the very winds when they dare lift this treasured glory from your shoulders."
She trembled so violently that she was forced to put down the child on a cushion at her feet. As she turned, with a mute gesture, as if to throw herself into his arms, he dropped the golden mass from his hands and coldly turned away.
"I would like to know, madam," after a long pause, his voice ringing, clear, cold, steady, from the opposite side of the room, "why you chose to come to Washington at all—knowing it to be against my wishes—what object could you possibly have had, unless it were to see him?"
That cruel insult struck the warm fountain of tears, too oft repressed by the proud, loving young wife. Her face dropped in her hands, bright tears falling through her fingers; her voice came to him mournfully earnest through its repressed sobs and moans:
"Because, oh! because I wanted to see you, Paul, so much—oh, so much!—that I felt I could brave your blame—dare all your anger, but to look on your dear face once more! I hoped you would not see me. I did not know you could be so cruel and unjust to me, or I would have fought harder against the temptation to come."
Moving toward her, he half opened his arms, then dropped them again at his sides, with something like a moan.