Even her hands were shaking now, and she quieted them by clasping them together. "Perhaps I am cold," she said. "You see already that we couldn't—make a success of it. It isn't your fault. We just don't—suit each other. We never did really. It was all a mistake." Her throat contracted.
"So it's another man!" he said. "I might have known it."
"No." She was quiet even under the sneer. "It isn't that. But there was never anything to build on between you and me. You think you want me now only because you can't have me. So it will not really hurt you if I get a divorce. And I'd rather do that. Then we can both start again—with clean slates. And I hope you will succeed. And have everything you want." She rose, one hand heavily on the desk, and held out the other. "Good-by."
Her attempt to end the scene with frankness and dignity failed. He could not believe that he had lost this object he had attempted to gain. His wounded vanity demanded that he conquer her resistance. He recalled their memories of happiness, tried to sway her with pictures of the future he would give her, appealed to generosity, to pity, to admiration. He played upon every chord of the feminine heart that he knew.
She stood immovable, sick with misery, and saw behind his words the motives that prompted them, self-love, self-assurance, baffled antagonism. She felt again, as something outside herself, the magnetism, the force like an electric current, that had conquered her once.
"I really wish you would go," she said. "All this gains nothing for either of us." At last he went.
"You women are all alike. Don't think you've fooled me. It's another man with more money. If I were not a gentleman you wouldn't get away so easily with this divorce talk. But I am. Go get it!" The door crashed behind him.
She did not move for a long moment. Then she went into the inner office, locked the door behind her, and sat down. Her glance fell on her clenched hands. She had not worn her wedding-ring for some time, but the finger was still narrowed a little, and on the inner side a smooth, white mark showed where it had been. Quietly she folded her arms on the desk and hid her face against them. After a little while she began to sob, rough, hard sobs that tore her throat and forced a few burning tears from her eyes.
An hour went by, and another. She was roused, then, by the sound of steps in the outer office. Doubtless a prospect had come in. She lifted her head, and waited, without moving, until the steps went out again. The noise of the streets came up to her as usual; street-cars clanged past, a newsboy cried an extra. Across the corner the hands of the clock in the Bank of San José building marked off the minutes with little jerks.
It was six o'clock. An urgent summons knocked at a closed door in her mind. Six o'clock. She looked at her wrist-watch, and memory awoke. She had an appointment at six-thirty, to close the final contracts on the forty-acre sale. Hutchinson was depending on her to handle it. Below the window the newsboy cried "War!" again.