"Jack was staying with the Knightriders," she persisted. "Kathleen Knightrider's the only soul who's ever suspected.… I never told her. She's heard that Jack has been sent to Switzerland and she wrote this morning to—to congratulate me! I tried to make amends to Jack too.… Oh, the mockery of it! All last night I saw the two of you pulling, pulling …"
"He's had his chance," Eric told her again.
"I wish God had struck me down," she whispered.
Eric invented an excuse to leave early, for, when Barbara was not reproaching herself for the engagement, she affected the abject humility of a slave whom he had bought for his pleasure. Perhaps she was amusing herself with a new emotion, perhaps she wanted to keep him alert and suspended, perhaps she enjoyed the vision of herself torn between the two men who wanted her more than anything in the world.…
2
For the second morning in succession Barbara did not telephone. Eric waited until noon and then asked her to dine with him.
"I will, if you—want me to," she answered with the new servile listlessness; and he wondered again whether she was trying to exact some novel abandonment of adoration or to exhaust him by passive resistance. "I believe we have people dining," she added.
"Well, choose some other night," he suggested.
"Oh, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. And I'm going to the country to-morrow."
"But I thought you were going to be in London till Christmas."