Page:The Painted Veil - Maugham - 1925.djvu/273

 go on with what they were doing, preceded Charles into the next room. She did not sit down, in order to show him that she expected him not to detain her. She knew that she was very pale and her heart was beating fast, but she faced him coolly, with hostile eyes.

“What is it you want?”

“I’ve just heard from Dorothy that you’re going the day after to-morrow. She told me that you’d come here to do your packing and she asked me to ring up and find out if there was I could do for you.”

“I’m grateful to you, but I can manage quite well by myself.”

“So I imagined. I didn’t come here to ask you that. I came to ask if your sudden departure is due to what happened yesterday.”

“You and Dorothy have been very good to me. I didn’t wish you to think I was taking advantage of your good nature.”

“That’s not a very straight answer.”

“What does it matter to you?”

“It matters a great deal. I shouldn’t like to think that anything I’d done had driven you away.”

She was standing at the table. She looked down. Her eyes fell on the Sketch. It was months old now. It was that paper which Walter had stared at all through the terrible evening when—and Walter now was She raised her eyes.

“I feel absolutely degraded. You can’t possibly despise me as much as I despise myself.”

“But I don’t despise you. I meant every word