All at once a sharp pain penetrated to her heart. The riot of fork and knife, the busy live sounds of conversation, were lost in a confused drumming in her ears. Everything became blurred to her eyes, except the mounting W of Sassoon's mustache and the round eyes of Ida, which seemed to grow rounder and bigger before her. She felt suddenly stricken, and yet unable to cry out—suffocated. She let her head fall slowly, staring at the plate before her, a yellow and red plate with a curious scroll design in the center. No! She could not understand. It was not possible that such a thing could befall her. Married! Massingale married! Blackness—a wall—a wall that had no opening, that could not be scaled or turned.
A waiter was offering something at her side. She nodded, taking up a fork, all quite mechanically.
Inside she felt a hand closing over her heart, contracting it painfully. Then all at once she experienced a burning feeling of shame and anger across her shoulders, on her cheeks, and on her lips where his kisses had touched her. How she had been entrapped, blindly, foolishly entrapped, caught and humiliated at the last, despite all her cleverness! Now she understood, in a flash of understanding, why he had not come, why he had not written, why he had not telephoned! He had gone further than he had meant. It was his conscience he was fleeing from—that conscience he had forgot when he had returned to her door!
"I understand! I shall see him no more!" a voice said within her. "It's all over. It never was anything!"
She felt within her the beginnings of many fierce emotions—despair, blinding anger, a fierce unreasoning desire for revenge, a revolt against the forces that had tricked her. But these slumbering points of fire did not leap up instantly. The shock that suddenly had arrested her very being, seemed to have arrested the operation of her sensibilities: they did not respond—they were numbed. The realization was staggering. She could not meet it; she rejected it, striving to send it from her. She felt hurt, horribly, weakly hurt; but she did not wish to acknowledge what had happened. She only knew, in a groping way, that something horrible had suddenly fallen on her out of a clear sky—something that meant the end of all things, the lurking tragedy in her life: something that she would, perhaps, never, never live down!
All at once she began to talk, looking at Sassoon with a dangerous provoking light in her eyes, her cheeks unnaturally flushed, reckless and defiant.
"Poor Mr. Sassoon! Ida, look at him. Did you ever see a man so miserable? He's furious at me. He was counting on such a confidential, intimate little luncheon! It really is a shame to play him such a trick! But I warned him—I always play fair. I told him he was no match for us!" She laughed at his puzzled expression, rushing on: "Really, though, you should conceal your feelings better. You should learn from women. We never show what we feel!"
Did she show what was tearing at her heart? She wondered. She did not care! There was nothing but injustice in the world. What had she done to deserve such a blow? If she had to suffer, others should suffer too! Sassoon's eyes were lighting up, tantalized by this frantic savagery in the woman. She saw the look, and laughed at it, knowing the bitterness she had reserved for him. Now she was scarcely polite to him, mocking him to his face, eagerly awaking within him the demons of covetousness and revenge.
"What has happened to her?" thought Ida, watching her anxiously.
"Pretty little devil, she'll pay for this!" thought Sassoon, blinking at her, his arms before him, rubbing the back of his soft hands with his quiet, combustibly patient gesture.