"To that odious Mrs. Orton."
"Elsa, you are mad! Mrs. Orton?"
"Leon, you don't know what hateful things she said of you. She said she knew them for facts. I was obliged to tell her the real truth, I could not stand to have her pitying me, and telling me she knew better than I did. And she declared she would not tell. I made her promise."
He laughed harshly.
"So, though you could betray your husband's confidence, you did not think that she could betray yours! Oh, Elsa! Elsa!... God help me!"
"Leon, it is very inconsiderate and unkind of you to frighten me so! I—I—shall faint or something. What harm so very great have I done? They often put stories about you in the papers. Nobody will know that this is true."
"The world may know, for aught I care. What is the world to me? Less than nothing. All my life I have never valued public opinion. I could bear with perfect fortitude to be an outlaw—tabooed by society, if—if I knew there lived on earth one woman I could trust."
He went to the window. The purple darkness outside seemed in sympathy with him. The verbena scent welled up in waves of perfume. Elsa began to cry bitterly, and then to let fall a torrent of excuses.
She had done it for him, because she hated to hear a spiteful woman speak ill of him. It was because she loved him so that she had been tempted; and there was no great harm done, and now he spoke to her as if she were a dog. He was unkind, he terrified her. She would not bear to be so scolded, she was not a child any more, etc.
Through it all Percivale stood immovable by the window, wondering what could possibly happen next. He felt rather like a man who, having received his death-blow, awaits with a dumb patience the moment when death itself shall follow. Was this woman really the Elsa of his adoration? Had he indeed to this slight, trifling, deceitful nature surrendered himself body and soul as a slave? How could he live on, a long life through, with a wife whom he despised?