'Won't you—won't you say you're glad to see me, John?'
He looked at her fixedly, then threw himself down beside the table, and rested his head on his hands.
'It's no good to suppose we can undo these twelve years,' he said, roughly; 'it's no good whatever to suppose that.'
'No,' said Phoebe—'I know.'
She too sat down on the other side of the table, deadly pale, not knowing what to say or do.
Suddenly he raised his head and looked at her, with his searching painter's eyes.
'My God!' he said, under his breath. 'We are changed, both of us—aren't we?'
She too studied the face before her—the grey hair, the red-rimmed eyes, of which the lids fluttered perpetually, shrinking from the light, the sombre mouth; and slowly a look of still more complete dismay overspread her own; reflected, as it were, from that half-savage discouragement and weariness which spoke from the drawn features, the neglected dress, and slouching figure, and seemed to make of the whole man one sore, wincing at a touch. Her heart sank—and sank.
'Can't we begin again?' she said, in a low voice, while the tears rose in her eyes. 'I'm sorry for what I did.'
'How does that help it?' he said, irritably. 'I'm a ruined man.
I can't paint any more—or, at any rate, the world doesn't care a
ha'p'orth what I paint. I should be a bankrupt—but for Madame de
Pastourelles—'