“Can’t we take it together? Can’t we go up into the mountains—away from the muck of the world—and get to know each other all over again? Remember our honeymoon, dear, the afternoon by the river? What a happy pair of kids we were! Let’s have a taste of that, just a taste again.”
A slight flicker of amusement—oh, very slight—raised the corners of her upslanted eyes. “Afraid we’ve passed the honeymoon age, dear boy.”
“It’s your love I want, Janey,” came from him desperately. “Just to feel that you’ll come to me for a time when I need you.”
She got up, crushed the spark from her cigarette, tossed it with a gesture of distaste into the tray and moved toward the piano. In her trailing green gown with its fanlike train—Goring never wore short skirts—and her [76] ]dangling scarab earrings, she looked very exotic, very tall and altogether unapproachable. She trailed the length of the room and stopped under the Chinese temple lamp. Its blue light shed an aura about her, giving her skin the moon-glow that Henner’s brush has made immortal.
Her husband gazed after her. Mercifully she stopped with her back toward him, and he failed to get the expression that pressed close her lips. His eyes had followed her with dog-like pleading. Without meeting them she knew—felt it. Neither could she escape the urge in his voice. In the old days, that deep tender note had thrilled her, made her yearn for him, given her the assurance that whatever happened, Bob would be there to make things right. To-night it merely annoyed her, rendered her position more difficult. Seeing Bob at all had become trying and the very thought of the thing he now suggested irritated her beyond measure. She had so completely done with him—finished! Taking advantage of this sudden illness was taking advantage of her. With all her being she resented it.
She stood for a moment turned from him, fingering the blue and gold tassel that hung from a bit of Chinese embroidery flung across the piano. Finally she turned back, face as void of light or shade as the old idol enshrined in a corner.
“Suppose we have a snack of supper and talk things over,” she suggested.
He was sitting bent almost double, elbows on knees, head in hands. A wave of contempt for his attitude of dejection swept over her. She was so palpitant with life, [77] ]vibrating with the thrill—ever new, ever sweet—that the laurel wreath brings.
Without waiting for a reply she rang. A tired-eyed maid appeared. Goring gave her directions and when the girl had gone out, proceeded to chat casually about affairs of the theater—a new firm of managers recently bobbed up on the horizon with a new play by a new author; the outlook for next season; the trend toward satirical comedy.
Bob sat without moving, knuckles pressing white against his forehead, the veins on his hands standing out like blue welts.