They were entering the city limits now, and he began to realise that neither had spoken for nearly an hour.
He ventured to glance sideways at her. The exquisitely sad profile against the window thrilled him painfully, almost to the verge of anger. Unwedded, she had been nearer to him. Even in his arms, shy and utterly unresponsive, she had been closer, a more vital thing, than ever she had been since the law had made her his wife.
For a moment the brutality in him stirred, and he felt the heat of blood in his face, and his heart grew restless and beat faster. All that is latent in man of impatience with pain, of intolerance, of passion, of violence, throbbed in every vein.
Then she turned and looked at him. And it was ended as suddenly as it began. Only his sense of helplessness and his resentment remained—resentment against fate, against the unknown people who had done this thing to him and to her; against himself and his folly; even subtly, yet illogically, against her.
"I was thinking," she said, "that we might at least lunch together—if you would care to."
"Would you?" he asked coldly.
"If you would."
His lip began to tremble and he caught it between his teeth; then his anger flared, and before he meant to he had said:
"A jolly luncheon it would be, wouldn't it?"