"No, Elsa," he said, rising, "you can do nothing more. You cannot make yourself a different woman; and nothing short of that would avail to help us much."
He passed her without looking at her, and shut himself into his dressing-room.
His wife crossed the room, and stared at herself in the glass.
"I know my eye-lids will be all swelled to-morrow," she thought, with a keen sense of injury. "I never saw Leon in such a rage. I hope he will soon get over it. I don't think he is a very good-tempered man; I call him rather sulky. Osmond was much greater fun."
A few minutes after she was in bed, the door opened and Percivale came in. He had changed his dress clothes for his yachting suit, and his cap was in his hand.
"Leon! Are you mad?" cried Elsa.
"I think not," he said, gravely, as he came to her bedside, "but—but—Elsa, forgive me, I cannot stay here and go on as if nothing had happened. You have given me too severe a shock for me to recover from all at once."
"Leon, what nonsense! You talk in such a strange way sometimes I think you cannot be quite right in your head. I do not understand you."
"No," he said, his voice almost a cry, "that is the trouble, Elsa. You do not understood me. I have not understood you either. I have been mistaken. I was ignorant of life. I did not know you, and now that, suddenly, I have seen you as you are, and not as I fancied you, I must have time to grow used to the idea. Poor child, poor child! You could not help it. It is I who am to blame, far more than you. Forgive me that I expected too much."
"What are you going to do? Go away and leave me alone here with the aunts for a punishment?"