I had my answer
in her face. It was the face of a woman whose virtue is absolutely
invulnerable, and whose honour is unshadowed, and who has suffered
too acutely in the maintenance of both to hear the faintest hint of
weakness without a smile. A fierce, delighted satisfaction ran
through me before she spoke.
"What do you insinuate, Victor?" she said, lightly, but with pointed
directness. "That I have been in love with two men at the same time?
No; nothing of my own will nor my own action stands between us.
Forgive, forsooth!" and she gave a delightful, mocking laugh.
"You are the person to be forgiven, if anybody, for inflicting this
year upon me! Now, I ask you to wait a little and you won't!"
"Because I don't see any adequate reason," I returned. "Last year I
told you mine, now I demand yours."
I kept my arm round her, and could feel the pulses in her waist
throb under it, but I turned my eyes away from her and stared
fixedly at the carpet, waiting for her to speak, with the best
patience I could command.
"I have told you till I am tired of telling you I must get better
first," she said, pettishly.
"But you are not getting better," I persisted.
"On the contrary, all these four months you have been getting
steadily worse."
So long a silence followed this that I looked into her face again
suddenly, the lips were quivering, and the eyes brimming with tears.
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