Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/233

 had been said that he purposed saying, and that he was simply repeating himself and repeating himself weakly. He stopped and waited her answer.

On her part she held herself under restraint, resolved not to interrupt him until he had said all he had to say. His change from impersonal to personal, which he thought she did not notice, simply impressed her as unimportant. She felt fully the weakness and embarrassment of his final words, and even with the stress under which she waited, his feeble maudlinism affected her with a sense of pity.

"Have you finished?" she asked, when he spoke no further.

"I think there should be no need of saying more," he answered.

She did not even bend in assent to his proposition. She simply pointed to the door, and said:

"Then you may go!"

The change in tone and manner startled him, trained as he was to surprises. He had foreseen a storm and indignation, and was prepared to treat that as simulated. This impressed him as genuine—so genuine that he was forced to ask himself