“Don’t look at me like that, Margot,” he said quickly. Then he tried to baffle her inflexible honesty. “Don’t you love me, Margot?”
He almost smiled as he asked it; he was so sure of her great love.
“Not in that way, Jean,” said Margot firmly and with absolute finality. And as she spoke she drew back a little, and took away her trembling, fluttering hands. Jean stared at her; it seemed to him as if solid earth had failed, as if something that was his by an inalienable right had been taken away.
He felt not angry so much as incredulous and blank. How could she possibly not love him? And how very lonely it made him feel!
Margot stooped down to pick up his letter that had fallen to the floor.
“Ah!” said Margot quickly. Her question answered itself; not even the pain in Jean’s eyes which was stabbing her to the heart could turn her from her purpose now.
Someone had written things to Jean, things which had urged him to do what she must never let him do, that was all. She prayed that God would make Jean turn away his eyes from her so that she should not be tempted beyond her strength to lean forward and take him in her arms. Jean threw himself back exhausted upon his pillows and closed his eyes.
“Very well then, Margot,” he said coldly. “That settles it, of course, I must go away.”
Margot crouched down in her chair like a creature caught in a trap.
“But, Jean, why?” she said. In spite of herself something primitive and bare escaped in her voice; it contradicted her words and reached Jean’s tired senses with unmistakable emphasis.