After a moment she slowly turned her head and looked at him. There was no answer, and no question in her gaze, only the still, expressionless clairvoyance of a soul that sees but does not heed.
There was no misunderstanding in her eyes, nothing wistful, nothing afraid or hurt—nothing of doubt. What had happened to others in the world was happening now to her. She understood it; that was all—as though the millions of her sisters who had passed that way had left to her the dread legacy of familiarity with the smooth, wide path they had trodden since time began on earth. And here it was, at last! Her own calmness surprised her.
He detained her for another moment in a swift embrace; inert, unresponsive, she stood looking down at the crushed gardenia in his buttonhole, dully conscious of being bruised. Then he let her go; her hand fell from his arm; she turned and faced the familiar stairs and mounted them.
Dinner waited for her; whether she ate or not, she could not afterward remember. About eleven o'clock, she rose wearily from the bed where she had been lying, and began to undress.
As for Desboro, he had gone straight to his rooms very much excited and unbalanced by the emotions of the moment.
He was a man not easily moved to genuine expression. Having acquired certain sorts of worldly wisdom in a career more or less erratic, experience had left him unconvinced and even cynical—or he thought it had.
But now, for the moment, all that lay latent in him of that impetuous and heedless vigour which may become strength, if properly directed, was awakening. Every recurring memory of her had already begun to tamper with his self-control; for the emotions of the moments just ended had been confusingly real; and, whatever they were arousing in him, now clamoured for some sort of expression.
The very thought of her, now, began to act on him like some freshening perfume alternately stimulating and enervating. He made the effort again and again, and could not put her from his mind, could not forget the lowered head and the slender, yielding grace of her, and her fragrance, and her silence.
Dressing in his rooms, growing more restless every moment, he began to walk the floor like some tormented thing that seeks alleviation in purposeless activity.