“You’re ill––upset.... It’s all right––everything is all right. You’re not to worry any more.... Everything is all right.”
At that moment he would have given his soul could he have truthfully said that he wanted her for his wife. He cursed himself for a cur and a coward, but somehow he could not force the words to his lips.
She lay back against the cushions, hiding her face.
There was a tragic moment of silence. Out in the ballroom a noisy one-step was in boisterous progress; there was a great deal of laughter and chattering; the little anteroom seemed as if it must be in another world.
Micky got up. He walked across the room and shut the door. There was a hard look about his mouth. For an instant he stood staring down at the floor irresolutely, 281 then he came back to Marie. He bent over her, but he did not touch her.
He spoke her name gently.
“Marie.”
She did not raise her head.
“I want to speak to you,” he said huskily.
She looked up then. Her face was flashed and quivering, and the brown eyes that for a moment met his own were full of an unutterable grief and shame.