Once he took her hand. Then she turned, and without withdrawing the fingers, which felt no sensation, said:
"Don't do that!"
And he obeyed.
She listened, seeking only the sadness in the sky, the melancholy of isolated and distant things. She knew her heart was broken, that nothing could ever exist for her again. No, never could she feel a palpitating joy; it would all be gray and brown—brown and gray as the worn hills about her, nature, which had forgot its May! And at the same time she listened, smiling and provocative, to this other man who passionately courted her, laying open his inner-most soul for her inspection—a man who proclaimed again and again that she drew him to her by the glow of her youth and the joy of life.
That afternoon was like a phantasmagoria. Even he, at the end, noticed her mental numbness.
"What's the matter with you?" he asked.
She looked at him, smiling negation.
"You seem crushed, as if I could stick a pin in you! What's wrong? Has that beast Sassoon insulted—?"
She shook her head. Even this incongruity did not penetrate.
"Listen!" he went on, retaining her hand as she started to descend. "I'm not a fool! I won't throw myself away on any woman! I'll play fair, too, and open. I don't want backing and pulling—I want things to be big, direct, honest! You know what I feel; you know what I'm capable of feeling! Don't you?"