For a long while they stood there, unstirring.
“Do you dismiss me?” he asked at last.
She made no reply.
“Had you rather that I should go, Eris?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” he asked, like a whipped boy.
“Because I am tired of you,” she said evenly.
He stepped to the corridor, took his hat and stick, but lingered, all hot with the rebuff, despising himself for lingering. He laid his hand on the door-knob, miserably hoping, miserable in his self-contempt.
“Eris!”
She did not even turn her head.