r. Was she
thunderstruck by his attitude? . . . Her eyelids dropped. He seemed to
understand ever so much--everything! Very well--but she must be made to
suffer. It was due to him. He understood everything, yet he judged it
indispensable to say with an obvious affectation of civility:

"I don't understand--be so good as to . . ."

She stood up. For a second he believed she intended to go away, and
it was as though someone had jerked a string attached to his heart. It
hurt. He remained open-mouthed and silent. But she made an irresolute
step towards him, and instinctively he moved aside. They stood before
one another, and the fragments of the torn letter lay between them--at
their feet--like an insurmountable obstacle, like a sign of eternal
separation! Around them three other couples stood still and face to
face, as if waiting for a signal to begin some action--a struggle, a
dispute, or a dance.

She said: "Don't--Alvan!" and there was something that resembled a
warning in the pain of her tone. He narrowed his eyes as if trying to
pierce her with his gaze. Her voice touched him. He had aspirations
after magnanimity, generosity, superiority--interrupted, however, by
flashes of indignation and anxiety--frightful anxiety to know how far
she had gone. She looked down at the torn paper. Then she looked up, and
their eyes met again, remained fastened together, like an unbreakable
bond, like a clasp of eternal complicity; and the decorous silence, the
pervading quietude of the house which enveloped this meeting of their
glances became for a moment inexpressibly vile, for he was afraid she
would say too much and make magnanimity impossible, while behind the
profound mournfulness of her face there was a regret--a regret of things
done--the regret of delay--the thought that if she had only turned back
a week sooner--a day sooner--only an hour sooner. . . . They were afraid
to hear again the sound of their voices; they did not know what they
might say--perhaps something that could not be recalled; and words are
more terrible than facts. But the tricky fatality that lurks in obscure
impulses spoke through Alvan Hervey's lips suddenly; and he heard
his own voice with the excited and sceptical curiosity with which one
listens to actors' voices speaking on the stage in the strain of a
poignant situation.

"If you have forgotten anything . . . of course . . . I . . ."

Her eyes blazed at him for an instant; her lips trembled--and