He caught up this appeal to fatalism with a quicker appreciation of her significance than he was wont to show.
"You need never see this man again unless you choose. You are my wife; I am your husband. Does that stand for nothing?"
"I should choose to see him," she answered with low precision, ignoring the rest. "There is the trouble."
He winced as though from a buffet. "Good God, Lydia, what have I done? Is there anything within my power which you desired which I haven't given you?"
"You have been very generous."
"Generous!" The word evidently galled him. "Do you realize that to regain your love I would gladly sacrifice every dollar of the five million I own?"
For a moment she made no response. The idea of living with a penniless Maxwell was one which she had never entertained, and it made clearer to her the hopelessness of her plight.
"I am not worth it, Herbert," she said gently.
He, too, paused, baffled and at a loss how to proceed. "You are so cold," he asserted with an access of indignation.
"Cold?" The quality of the interrogation expressed the incredulity of newly discovered self-knowledge.