She gave him back all his kiss, but after a moment he
felt her stiffening in his arms, and she put him aside
and stood up.
"Ah, my poor Newland--I suppose this had to be.
But it doesn't in the least alter things," she said, looking
down at him in her turn from the hearth.
"It alters the whole of life for me."
"No, no--it mustn't, it can't. You're engaged to
May Welland; and I'm married."
He stood up too, flushed and resolute. "Nonsense!
It's too late for that sort of thing. We've no right to lie
to other people or to ourselves. We won't talk of your
marriage; but do you see me marrying May after this?"
She stood silent, resting her thin elbows on the mantelpiece,
her profile reflected in the glass behind her. One
of the locks of her chignon had become loosened and
hung on her neck; she looked haggard and almost old.
"I don't see you," she said at length, "putting that
question to May. Do you?"
He gave a reckless shrug. "It's too late to do
anything else."
"You say that because it's the easiest thing to say at
this moment--not because it's true. In reality it's too
late to do anything but what we'd both decided on."
"Ah, I don't understand you!"
She forced a pitiful smile that pinched her face
instead of smoothing it. "You don't understand because
you haven't yet guessed how you've changed things for
me: oh, from the first--long before I knew all you'd
done."
"All I'd done?"
"Yes. I was perfectly unconscious at first that people
here were shy of me--that they thought I was a dreadful
sort of person.
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