"Then I shall go. Why isn"t Harry here?"
"He wouldn"t come. I"ve been dining with him at the club."
"He ought to have come."
"I don"t believe it would have made any difference."
Adela looked at him for a moment; then she walked swiftly across the room to Maggie Dennison, and held out her hand.
"Maggie, I haven"t had a talk with you for ever so long. How do you do, Mr. Ruston?"
Ruston shook hands but did not move. He stood silently through two or three moments of Adela"s forced chatter. Mrs. Dennison was sitting on a small couch, which would just hold two people; but she sat in the middle of it, and did not offer to make room for Adela. When Adela paused for want of anything to say, there was silence. She looked from the one to the other. Ruston smiled the smile that always exasperated her on his face--the smile of possession she called it in an attempt at definition.
"Look at Marjory!" said Mrs. Dennison. "How solitary she looks! Poor girl! Do go and talk to her, Adela."
"I came to talk to you," said Adela, in fiery temper.
"Well, I"ll come and talk to you both directly," said Maggie.
"We"re talking business," added Willie Ruston, still smiling.
"Oh, if you don"t want me!" cried Adela, and she turned away, declaring in her heart that she had made the last effort of friendship.
With her going went Ruston"s smile. He bent his head, and said in a low voice,
"You are the only woman whom I could have left like that, and the only one whom I could have found it hard to leave. Was it very hard for you?"
"It was just the truth for me," she answered.
"Of course you were angry and hurt. I was afraid you would be," he said.
She looked at him with a curious smile.
"But then," he continued, "you saw how I was placed. Do you think I didn"t suffer in going? I"ve never had such a wrench in my life. Won"t you forgive me, Maggie?"
"Forgive! What"s the use of talking like that? What"s the use of my "forgiving" you for being what you are?"
"You talk as if you"d found me out in something."
She turned to him, saying very low,
"And haven"t you found me out, too? We are face to face now, Willie."
He did not fully understand her. Half in justification, half in apology, he said doggedly,
"I simply had to go."
"Yes, you simply had to go. There was the railway. Oh, what"s the use of talking about it?"
"I was afraid you meant to have nothing more to do with me."
"Or you wished it?" she asked quickly.
He started. She had discerned the thoughts that came into his mind in his solitary walks.
"Don"t be afraid. I"ve wished it," she added.
There was a pause; then he, not denying her charge, whispered,
"I can"t wish it now--not when I"m with you."
"To have nothing more to do with you! Ah, Willie, I have nothing to do with anything but you."
A swift glance from him told her that her appeal touched him.
"What else is left me? Can I live as I am living?"
"What are we to do?" he asked. "We shall see one another sometimes now.
I can"t come to your house, you know. But sometimes----"
"At a party--here and there! And the rest of the time I must live at--at home! Home!"
He bent to her, whispering,
"We must arrange----"
"No, no," she replied, pa.s.sionately. "Don"t you see?"
"What?" he asked, puzzled.
"Oh, you don"t understand! It"s not that. It"s not that I can"t live without you."
"I never said that," he interposed quickly.
"And yet I suppose it is that. But it"s something more. Willie, I can"t live with him."
"Does he suspect?" he asked in an eager whisper.
"I don"t know. I really don"t know. It"s worse if he doesn"t. Oh, if you knew what I feel when he looks at me and asks----"
"Asks what?"
"Nothing--nothing in words; but, Willie, everything, everything. I shall go mad, if I stay. And then don"t you see----?" She stopped, going on again a moment later. "I"ve borne it till I could see you. But I can"t go on bearing it."
He glanced at her.
"We can"t talk about it here," he said. "Everybody will see how agitated you are."