“What's the matter?” she exclaimed in wonder, and turned to assure herself that it was not that some one spied from the inner door, for Mac-Taggart's face had become exceeding pale.
“Nothing, nothing,” he replied; “you are—you are so ferocious.”
“Am I, Sim?” said she. “Who taught me? Oh, Sim,” she went on, pleadingly, “be good to me. I'm sick, I'm sick of life, and you don't show you care for me a little bit. Do you love me, Sim?”
“Heavens!” he cried, “you would ask the question fifty times a-day if you had the opportunity.”
“It would need a hundred times a-day to keep up with your changing moods. Do you love me, Sim?” She was smiling, with the most pathetic appeal in her face.
“You look beautiful in that gown, Kate,” said he, irrelevantly, not looking at it at all, but out at the window, where showed the gabbarts tossing in the bay, and the sides of the hill of Dunchuach all splashed with gold and crimson leafage.
“Never mind my gown, Sim,” said she, stamping her foot, and pulling at the buttons of his coat. “Once—oh, Sim, do you love me? Tell me, tell me, tell me! Whether you do or not, say it, you used to be such a splendid liar.”
“It was no lie,” said he curtly; then to himself: “Oh, Lord, give me patience with this! and I have brought it on myself.”
“It was no lie. Oh, Sim!” (And still she was turning wary eyes upon the door that led to her husband's retirement.) “It was no lie; you're left neither love nor courtesy. Oh, never mind! say you love me, Sim, whether it's true or not: that's what it's come to with me.”
“Of course I do,” said he.