Page:Meanwhile (1927).pdf/75

 "She was so sweet about your examinations, and your mother. She seems such an integral part—"

Grover went over to the sofa and resumed his old place, but Sophie was still inert. In her eyes was the dark, faintly bitter light that had been there when he had spoken of her portrait.

"Naturally!" he tried to explain. "We grew up together. She's a sort of sister. At times, when she comes blundering into my affairs I have a truly brotherly desire to murder her. She didn't know what she was doing—"

Sophie got up suddenly, with a dreadful hollow little laugh. "Nor did the Marshall of France with orders from God Almighty!" As she spoke she struck a match viciously and reached for a cigarette.

"Sophie!"

"You being the Dauphin!"

He sprang up and seized her arms. Her eyes met his, steadily. They were hard, but it was an assumed hardness masking some deadly hurt. Her rigid unresponsiveness baffled him to the point of frenzy. After a moment she pushed away his hands.

His whole body trembled. He had no voice, and nothing to say. Rather he had so much to say that the words jostled and jammed solidly together at the exit.

Sophie was crushing her newly-lighted cigarette into an. She began walking toward the door. When she was half way across the room he hurried