She did not love him. The man had soon recognised that fact, and it had brought an unexpected stab of pain. If she had loved him, as some women can love, she might have—helped! But she was cold as ice. Even his own lukewarm endearments had proved unacceptable; there was evidently no personal attraction to explain the mystery of her marriage with a man who was an historic failure.
They had been married a week, and were sitting in the garden of a foreign hotel, discussing a possible excursion, when Lilith startled her husband by a sudden question. Her voice, as she spoke, was low and unperturbed; her face showed a gentle smile, nevertheless that question smote upon Lowther’s ears like the crack of a whip.
“At what time,” asked Lilith calmly, “do you next take your morphia?”
He turned upon her, furious, ashamed, stammering the inevitable pitiful denial.
“Wh-at do you mean? Morphia—I! Who says I take morphia?”
“Everybody says it. Everybody knows. Don’t distress yourself, Hereward. I only wished to know your hours. It is better, isn’t it, that we should plan our expeditions for the times when you are most—most—”
“Most what?”
“Normal! The morphia naturally is soothing, but while it is working would it not be better if you were—alone?”
“You are talking nonsense. You don’t know what you are talking about. If you understood anything about the working of morphia, you would realise that after a dose one feels stimulated, refreshed. I am never so well as immediately after—”
“I’m sorry. I am ignorant, as you say. Then we had better start our excursion immediately after an injection. That is, if we can manage to do it in the time. How long is it before the—er—other stage comes on?”