Page:Her Roman Lover (Frothingham, 1911).djvu/306



NNE walked about the streets for nearly an hour, trying to assemble her mental forces for the struggle that was to come; but her mind slid helplessly from one possible line of defense to another, unable to grasp any of them long enough to measure their expediency. Convinced that the happiness of her life depended upon what she should say or do during the next hour, she yet found herself unable to choose the words she must speak, the few words out of all those in the world which were the ones that could bring Gino back to her. She could not meet him simply with the truth: he was not so constituted that he could believe her. Bitter experience had taught her the difficulties of dealing with him during his attacks of jealousy, and it was possible that to control him she should use a tact, an art, a cajolery which neither temperament nor education had given her. An older or cleverer woman would have said: “Wait. When his anger has had time to fall he will begin to feel the pain of wanting you; that will be your hour.”