"I hate lying!" she said, with a kind of physical disgust—"and now I suppose it will be my chief occupation for weeks."
It was true that she hated lying, and Ashe was well aware of it. Of such a battle-stroke, indeed, as she had played at the ball, when her prompt falsehood snatched Cliffe from Mary Lyster, she was always capable. But in general her pride, her very egotism and quick temper kept her true.
Perhaps the fact represented one of those deep sources whence the well of Ashe's tenderness was fed. At any rate, consciously or not, it was at this moment one of his chief motives for not finding the past intolerable or the future without hope. He took some wine and a sandwich from the tray, and began to feed her. In the middle, she pushed his hands away, and her eyes brimmed again with tears.
"Put it down," she commanded. And when he had done so, she raised his hands deliberately, one after the other, and kissed them, crying:
"William!—I have been a horrible wife to you!"
"Don't be a goose, Kitty. You know very well that—till this last business—And don't imagine that I feel myself a model, either!"
"No," she said, with a long sigh. "Of course, you ought to have beaten me."
He smiled, with an unsteady lip.
"Perhaps I might still try it."
She shook her head.