She drew out the tiny handkerchief, redolent of lily of the valley. In old days a tear from her had driven him mad.
"You surprise me," was his answer. "I understood that you desired to discuss a mortgage. If you will allow me to say so, I must confess that any allusion from you to our past relations seems to me to be in the worst of taste."
"Osbert! Oh, Osbert! That you can speak so to me! It is useless—quite useless to go farther. Had I been rich and prosperous, I could understand your desire to taunt me.... I never could have believed that you would stoop to it when you know quite well the straits to which we are reduced—that I and mine are starving!"
Again his look swept over her, as if mocking at her general aspect of subdued luxury.
"Madam, it seems to me that the unfortunate tradesmen whom you employ are more likely to starve than you are," he said emphatically. "But, as regards your financial position, that is, I suppose, part of the subject which we are here to discuss. I gather that my foreclosing of this mortgage embarrasses you seriously?"
She kept her face turned from him, allowing one crystal tear to lie undried upon her soft cheek, as she answered in low, grief-broken tones:
"We were almost beggars before. This is the final straw."
He took the chance she gave him to look full at her. Her aspect of humiliation and discouragement seemed to please him.
"Good!" said he. "Then we come to something definite. What do you suggest that I should do in this matter? I am a little puzzled, because you cannot, I think, have supposed that I should be likely to strain any point in your favour—rather perhaps the reverse. Eh?"
She paused, as it were for breath. What could she do? She had thought of him in many ways, but had foreseen nothing like this. Even her impervious vanity was forced to the conclusion that the sight of her in her scarcely impaired beauty moved him no more than if she had been a hairdresser's block. Not even the ashes of passion remained. He was pleased that she should be humiliated. He liked to have her at his feet. Oh, why had she not guessed that a nature like his—warped, distorted, embittered—would rejoice at seeing the woman who had injured him brought low? His foot was on her neck! She felt inclined to spring up and rush from the room—or to snatch his hands and make some wild appeal! Why, this was the man who had trembled at her touch—who had thrashed the son of a peer for saying that she was a flirt! This was the man who had been made happy with a smile, desperate with a frown. Yet now....