Mrs. Conifer’s pretty, weak face stiffened into horror. She was thinking of the quiet Inn, with its perpetual, sanctified taste of cloisters and the Middle Ages; thinking of Kinsman’s rooms, with the high-art furbelows, the violin under the table, the untidy dhurries on the floor, the impressionist daubs which he had painted himself and hung on the wall to keep the blue plates company. She thought of the black, dingy doorway, of the girl with the savage face and the twinkling earrings.
“Talk to me.” Conifer, who had shut the door carefully, half lifted her into the great chair by the fire and stretched himself at her feet on the rug, like a faithful dog.
Their eyes met; his full of worship, hers of lava-like tears.
“You love me?” she asked incredulously, the frozen look creeping more stiffly over her face. “I —I began to think——”
She looked such a small, shrunken thing—as he told her afterward—that he felt quite anxious and remorseful.
“Love!” he cried out boyishly; “I should think I did. Only business worries, you know, darling, enchain a man. He can’t be always saying it.”
He took her in his arms. She shivered as he kissed her, taking her full punishment from his ardent lips. She had loved him all along—only him. She thought of Kinsman, in his stuffy, wooden room, with a fierce, ashamed loathing. She kept quiet a little, her head on her husband’s breast and his lips just flicking her face now and then. At last she broke out beseechingly:
“Let us go away for a holiday.”
“Very good idea. When?”
“To-night—to-morrow, I mean. And, Dick—”