"You know," he said, with an ugly glimmer in his eyes, "I need not continue this appeal to your common sense, if you haven't got any; I can force you to a choice."
"What choice?"—in leisurely contempt.
He hesitated; then, insolently: "Your choice between—honest wifehood and honest divorce."
For a moment she could not comprehend: suddenly her hands contracted and clinched as the crimson wave stained her from throat to brow. But in her eyes was terror unutterable.
"I—I beg—your pardon," he stammered. "I did not mean to frighten you—"
But at his first word she clapped both hands over her ears, staring at him in horror—backing away from him, shrinking flat against the wall.
"Confound it! I am not threatening you," he said, raising his voice; but she would not hear another word—he saw that now—and, with a shrug, he walked past her, patient once more, outwardly polite, inwardly bitterly amused, as he heard the key snap in the door behind him.
Standing in his own office on the floor below, he glanced vacantly around him. After a moment he said aloud, as though to somebody in the room: "Well, I tried it. But that is not the way."
Later, young Mrs. Malcourt, passing, saw him seated at his desk, head bent as though listening to something interesting. But there was nobody else in the office.
When at last he roused himself the afternoon sun was shining level in the west; long rosy beams struck through the woods turning the silver stems of the birches pink.