"What you are always calling me, I suppose," he muttered,--"a
coward. You have so little consideration, Elizabeth. My health
isn't what it was."
His eyes had wandered longingly toward the cupboard at the
further end of the apartment. The woman upon the couch smiled.
"You may help yourself," she directed carelessly. "Perhaps then
you will be able to tell me why you have come in such a state."
He crossed the room in a few hasty steps, his head and shoulders
disappeared inside the cupboard. There was the sound of the
withdrawal of a cork, the fizz of a sodawater syphon. He
returned to his place a different man.
"You must remember my age, Elizabeth dear," he said,
apologetically. "I haven't your nerve--it isn't likely that I
should have. When I was twenty-five, there was nothing in the
world of which I was afraid."
She looked him over critically.
"Perhaps I am not so absolutely courageous as you think," she
remarked. "To tell you the truth, there are a good many things
of which I am afraid when you come to me in such a state. I am
afraid of you, of what you will do or say."
"You need not be," he assured her hastily. "When I am away from
you, I am dumb. What I suffer no one knows. I keep it to
myself."
She nodded, a little contemptuously.
"I suppose you do your best," she declared. "Tell me, now, what
is this fresh thing which has disturbed you?"
Her visitor stared at her.
"Does there need to be any fresh thing?" he muttered.
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