'Know what, Norah?' his voice, usually expressionless, seemed to plead; 'tell me, what has happened.'
'In a minute, Archie. Give me that packing-case to sit on, will you. I've been on short rations lately.'
She noticed that, bringing the box, he fumbled like a blind man.
He pressed her to have breakfast before she talked.
'No,' she said, 'I must get this over first,' and regretted the ungracious words when she saw him flinch. If you mind that...' she began. 'Archie, you mustn't mind anything about me. I can't bear you to mind.'
His reply fell so low that she had to strain her ears to catch it. The words confirmed her flash of understanding.
'You,' he murmured reluctantly, 'are the only thing I mind about. As long as nothing's happened to you.'
A few seconds had passed since Norah had stepped into the sun. In that space she had ranged the gamut of emotion. The first sight of Archie had dazzled her brain, as the sun her eyes. For a moment the earth had reeled in a vertigo. And its reeling hurled her into a lake of shame that stung like the fumes of ammonia: shame at the ludicrous, the indecent figure she cut. Anger succeeded. Anger with Archie, whose pursuit had put her in this intolerable position. How like a man, she thought, to come to recapture the woman he had not troubled to keep! How blundering! How undignified!
Archie's first words dispelled her resentment. And his patent sincerity was troubling. Was there some mistake? ... And somehow she saw Archie for the first time for months—or was it years?—saw something she had missed.... Archie's rigid face, his voice so resolutely kept from trembling told her there was another unconsidered facet in her romance. With all her high thinking, her regard for loyalty, bond, rights, she had missed the one factor that denied her freedom—that Archie might still care.
He cared. Must have cared all the time. The distress he failed to conceal did not spring from the outraged vanity of a husband wounded in his pride of possession. The hurt was deeper, deep in his undemonstrative heart.