Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/348

 she had never known. . . that he had really suffered, far more deeply than she had ever imagined. It may have been hurt pride, for he was a proud man. It may have been that he had loved her passionately. He was, after all, a crude, unsubtle man who must have regarded the whole affair as dishonorable and wretched. It was clear that the wound had never healed, that it still had the power to cause him pain.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I'm sorry. . . . There was never any question of forgiveness. I was not injured. . . . Besides it was morz my fault than yours."

And then the Governor did a fantastic thing. He bent over his own fat stomach and raised her hand gently to his lips. There was in the gesture a curious absence of sentimentality. It was not even theatrically self-conscious, as well might have been expected. It was the simple gesture of a man who made speeches before thousands and became helpless and mute before one woman. It was eloquent. It spoke more than whole volumes of words. And somehow it released his tongue.

"The boy?" he said, "What about the boy?"

For a moment Lily did not answer him. She turned away, looking out of the window. She trembled a little and when at last she spoke, it was with averted face, for she lied to him, coldly and with deliberation.

"He is dead," she said gently. "He was killed in the war . . . the very first year, at the beginning." And then she turned with a sudden air of domination over herself and her ravaged, saddened lover. "I must go now," she said. "Good-by, Henry. I wish you luck. I know now that what I respected in you is not dead. It has survived everything. It is not completely destroyed. Until just now, I was afraid."

"Good-by, Lily."

In a moment she was gone, down the long corridor to the spot where M. de Cyon awaited her. to her destination she turned and saw that the Governor was still watching her. She saw that he watched her despite the fact that he was talking now to a woman, a large woman who was unmistakably his wife. She was deep-bosomed, of the type which becomes masculine with the approach of middle age. She wore flat-heeled shoes and a picture hat with a series of flowing