She saw his fingers open, then close. For once in her life, just once, she longed to see those strangely intent eyes fixed on her, wanted them to come closer and closer until her own eyes must close, yet she sat weak, watching the back of his head, then his fingers. For the second time in her life,—the first was during Walter Windrom’s visit,—she saw deep into the psychology of infidelity: this time more specifically. Indeed with a crudeness that made her blush.
Suddenly he wheeled about. The look was there. She gave a strange little cry, raised her hands slightly from the ground, and in a flash found herself imprisoned by his arms, and mouth.
A few moments later he was on his feet, facing the valley again, his arms folded.
He walked to the trees and saddled the ponies. But as Louise made no move he returned and stood looking down at her. “There’s still time to escape,” he warned her.
She was again pulling at the grass. “There’s only one way to escape from oneself . . . And that is not to acknowledge the danger.”
“Even when mad things happen?”
“Mad things are no more disgraceful than the mad desires that precipitate them. If you admit the desires——”
“Yes, but—good God!” It ended in an explosive sigh at the futility of any reasoning faculty one might bring to bear on a problem that had its source somewhere so far beneath reason’s reach.
He sat down again, at her feet, and their eyes met in a long, steady regard.
“Do you suppose it has been—just that, really, all this time?” he finally asked.