"
"I've been longing for you," she said, seeming to awake suddenly from her
half-dreamy half-playful account of the life she had been living. The
speech, with its cruel frankness and its more cruel affection, embittered
him.
"When you're tired of a rosy apple, you like a bite at a bitter cherry?
One bite; the rest of me, I suppose, is only to dress the table."
She understood him.
"Well, then, you shouldn't come," she protested. "I've been fair about
it."
"No, not always; what you write and say now and then isn't fair unless it
means something more."
"Oh, I don't know what it means."
Her misery drove away his resentment, and pity filled its place.
"You seem more than usually down on your luck," he said with a smile.
"Yes, a little," she confessed. "It's the Mildmays and--and--the general
sham of it, you know." She glanced across at him, smiling. "That's why I
longed for you," she said.
It seemed to him that never had fate and never had woman been so cruel.
The one so nearly had given what he wanted, the other tantalised with the
exhibition of a feeling only just short of what he hoped for, but the
more merciless because it seemed not to understand by how narrow an inch
it failed of his desires.
Pages:
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311