Page:Glimpses of the Moon (Wharton 1922).djvu/358

348 dear!" He had dropped his mocking smile, and was at her side, her hands in his. "Oh, my dear, don't you see that we've both been feeling the same thing, and at the same hour? You lay awake thinking of it all night, didn't you? So did I. Whenever the clock struck, I said to myself: 'She's hearing it too.' And I was up before daylight, and packed my traps—for I never want to set foot again in that awful hotel where I've lived in hell for the last three days. And I swore to myself that I'd go off with a woman by the first train I could catch—and so I mean to, my dear."

She stood before him numb. Yes, numb: that was the worst of it! The violence of the reaction had been too great, and she could hardly understand what he was saying. Instead, she noticed that the tassel of the window-blind was torn off again (oh, those children!), and vaguely wondered if his luggage were safe on the waiting taxi. One heard such stories.

His voice came back to her. "Susy! Listen!" he was entreating. "You must see yourself that it can't be. We're married—isn't that all that matters? Oh, I know—I've behaved like a brute: a cursèd arrogant ass! You couldn't wish that ass a worse kicking than I've given him!  But that's not the point, you see. The point is that we're married.  Married.  Doesn't it mean something to you, something—inexorable?  It does to me. I didn't dream it would—in just that way. But all I can say is that I suppose the