"That? Oh, Sobrenski did that. He—"
"Well?" said Emile. He waited but there came no answer, so he continued the interrogation. "You didn't make a scene, Fatalité?"
He heard her flinch and draw in her breath as she covered her face with her free hand. Her low painful sobbing reminded him of the inarticulate moaning of an animal.
Even in her grief, her abandonment, she was unlike all other women. Emile stood beside her in watchful silence, and neither attempted to interfere nor to console her. He was wise enough to know that to a highly strung nature like hers too much self-repression might be dangerous, and he was humane enough to be glad that she had the relief of tears.
At length he said quietly, "I didn't know you could cry, Fatalité. I didn't know you were human enough for that."
She still fought desperately for composure, thrusting a fold of the torn velo between her teeth. The naked light shone on her bent head, and on her glittering rope of hair.
A strange impulse suddenly moved Emile to finger a loose strand with a touch that had in it something of a caress.
Gamin she had been, equestrienne, heroine, and now she was only a sorrowful Dolores.
At last words came.
She stood up and faced him, shaking back her hair.