Page:Dale - A Marriage Below Zero.djvu/173

Rh whom unnatural compassion exists in all its power.

Dinner was over. I could not prolong it any further if I tried. He had risen from the table. He was about to leave me—"Arthur." I swallowed a lump. My voice sounded choked.

"Elsie," he said, turning at once, and coming back to me. He stood and looked in my face with the cool, un-ardent friendship which I hated to see there. " What is it?"

He waited patiently while I gulped again and strove to be cool.

"May I speak to you, Arthur?"

He laughed.

"Why, Elsie, have you not been speaking to me for the last hour. I always like to hear you, dear. You are one of the most thoroughly sensible little women I have ever met. I—"

"Don't!" I cried, with a gesture of disgust. "Spare me. I do not want to discuss the newspapers, or talk pretty nothings, I wish to speak with you—quietly, you know—on a—a serious matter, con-connected only with ours-selves.