“Thank you, Geoffrey. You are very good. Are you vexed with me for being so cross?”
“Vexed with you, my darling!” he replied, as he had done once before; “vexed with you! No, never fancy anything so impossible.” And he stooped and kissed her on the forehead.
That was more than she had expected. She shrank back, half raising her hand, as if to repel him. Geoffrey looked surprised and concerned, but not hurt. The change in her would take a long time to come home to his unsuspecting heart.
“I did not mean to tease you,” he said. “Is your head aching? I fear, my poor dear, you are suffering very much.”
“Yes,” she said, “I am suffering very much. But don’t begin again about a doctor, Geoffrey,” she went on, growing excited. “I won’t see a doctor. There is nothing the matter with me that a doctor is needed for. I shall be well again by the morning, you’ll see. I won’t see a doctor.”
“Very well,” he said, “you know best, I suppose. What will you do? Won’t you get up a little and come into the other room? You can be quite quiet there, and I should be horribly dull by myself,” he added, wistfully, half smiling at himself as he spoke.
But no answering smile broke on Marion’s face. She moved impatiently, and answered coldly—
“I don’t know if I shall get up or not. Leave me, any way, for the present and go and smoke or something. Perhaps I will get up in a while; but oh, do go.”
So he went. And then, when alone, she cried with remorse for her unkindness.
“But I can’t help it,” she said—“I can’t help it. I don’t want to be wicked, but I am forced into it. I shall grow worse and worse, till I die. Oh, if only I might die now!”