Page:The Yellow Book - 03.djvu/239

 "I see—I see," he muttered. His hands clenched till the knuckles showed white.

"I'm very sorry," she added lamely. Her tone was gentler, for his dumb suffering moved her sensibilities. In her agitation, the crudity of her avowal had slipped her notice.

"That's no use," he answered wearily.

"Alec, don't be angry with me. Can't we be friends? Don't you see yourself now that it was mad, absurd?" she argued, eager to reinstate herself in his eyes. Then, as he made no answer, "Let us be friends, Alec, and you will go back to Scarsdale, when you are well and strong. You will give up nothing for my sake. I should not wish that, you know, Alec."

"Yes," he assented mechanically, "I shall go back."

"I shall always think of this morning," she continued, growing sentimentally remorseful as the sensation of rising relief pervaded her. "And you will soon forget all about it," she added, with a cheeriness of tone that rang false; and pause, awaiting his answer.

"And I shall forget all about it," he repeated after her.

To mask her disappointment, she assumed a silly, nervous gaiety.

"And I shall keep it quite secret that you were so naughty as to ask me to run away with you. I sha'n't even tell Jim."

He nodded stupidly.

With a thin, empty smile on her face, she was debating how best to part with him, when, of a sudden, he rose, and, without a word, walked out of the room.

He strode away across the lawn, and, as she watched his retreating figure, she felt for him a shallow compassion, not unmingled with contempt.