You
abuse the friends I am obliged to find rather than be alone. You neglect
me in every way--and you say that I am driving you mad. Do you realize
at all how you have changed in this last year? You may have really gone
mad, for all I know, but it is I who have to suffer and bear the
consequences. You neglect me brutally. How do I know how you pass your
time?"

Reanda stood still in the middle of the room, gazing at her. For a
moment he was surprised by the outbreak. She did not give him time to
answer.

"You leave me in the morning," she went on, working her coldness into
anger. "You often go away before I am awake. You come back at midday,
and sometimes you do not speak a word over your breakfast. If I speak,
you either do not answer, or you find fault with what I say; and if I
show the least enthusiasm for anything but your work, you preach me down
with proverbs and maxims, as though I were a child. I am foolish,
young, impatient, silly, not fit to take care of myself, you say! Have
you taken care of me? Have you ever sacrificed one hour out of your long
day to give me a little pleasure? Have you ever once, since we were
married, stayed at home one morning and asked me what I would do--just
to make one holiday for me? Never. Never once! You give me a fine house
and enough money, and you think you have given me all that a woman
wants."

"And what do you want?" asked Reanda, trying to speak calmly.

"A little kindness, a little love--the least thing of all you promised
me and of all I was so sure of having! Is it so much to ask? Have you
lied to me all this time? Did you never love me? Did you marry me for my
face, or for my voice? Was it all a mere empty sham from the beginning?
Have you deceived me from the first? You said you loved me. Was none of
it true?"

"Yes. I loved you," he answered, and suddenly there was a dulness in his
voice.

"You loved me--"

She sighed, and in the stillness that followed the little ivory fan
rattled as she opened and shut it. To his ear, the tone in which she had
spoken had rung false. If only he could have heard her voice speaking as
it had once sounded, he must have been touched.

"Yes," she continued. "You loved me, or at least you made me think you
did. I was young and I believed you. You do not even say it now. Perhaps
because you know how hard it would be to make me believe you."

"No. That is not the reason."

She waited a moment, for it was not the answer she had