"People call it hysteria," she said at last. "It is a form of hysteria now, but it did not begin with that. It was overstrain, nervous breakdown, a collapse of the system. See my hand when I hold it up, how it shakes? I can't control that, and my heart beats wildly at the slightest exertion. I am exhausted, limp, Victor, ironed out by the events of last year, very much like what your collar would be without its starch!"
She was looking up at me now and half laughing. She had raised her hand between me and the nearest lamp; it quivered violently, as she said, and looked transparent and scarlet close against the light. I caught it in mine and drew it up to my lips.
"Victor!" she said, indignantly, "release it! remember where we are!"
"I don't care where we are!" I muttered, letting go her hand, but not before I had kissed it passionately across the tiny knuckles and in the palm. It fell nerveless into her lap; her face grew so desperately pallid, even her lips, that I was startled.
"Lucia! What is the matter?"
The lids that seemed ready to sink over her eyes lifted again.
"Nothing; but—I was telling you, just this minute, I am exhausted—done for."
I looked at her in dismay, and I saw her heart must be beating violently; the red geraniums against her breast rose and sank in a series of rapid, irregular jerks.
"I am sorry," I murmured. "Forgive me;" and my heart sank suddenly with a vague, in definable sense of apprehension as I looked at her.
Where was the girl who had come to me a year ago, full of overflowing, eager, exuberant health and life, hungry for love, longing and ardent for a kiss? Not here; somewhere in the past that I had neglected and refused. And the contrast between the two images struck me like a lash across the brain. The next minute I had recovered myself. This was only a passing in disposition of Lucia's, the sooner we were married now the better.