“Don’t—don’t!” she cried sharply. “I can’t,—I can’t talk if you do!”
She sank helplessly into a chair opposite, and looked up at him with despair in her face.
“Oh—why can’t you understand without words? Why can’t people see into one another’s minds? And I must talk and explain, and it’s all no use—no good!” she cried incoherently.
He had pushed both hands into his pockets, and he stood looking down at her, trying to read her face, his own lined with mingled doubt and fear.
All at once he flung himself into a chair.
“Yes! you must explain. I don’t understand,” he returned doggedly. Then he leant forward with a swift, contrite movement. “How could I? You are ill—upset, no wonder!” he repeated.
“No,” she said deliberately, keeping her voice steady. “I’m not ill. It was a shock, of course; it was unexpected. But father and I were never—we didn’t understand one another,” she added looking past him. “It isn’t as though I had loved him very much!”
He was silent. “Then what is it?” he asked desperately.
She let her eyes rest on his face for a moment before she spoke.
“I—I can’t do it, Larry!” she said at last, in an almost inaudible whisper.