ow and green, flanking an oak mantel, which framed an enormous
expanse of mottled purple tile, with a diminutive gas log in the middle.
A glassy looking oak table occupied most of the room, and the chairs
that were crowded in around it were upholstered in highly polished
coffee-colored horse-hide, with very ornate nails. A Moorish archway
with a spindling grill across the top, gave access to it. The room
served, doubtless, to gratify the proprietor's passion for beauty. The
flagrant impossibility of its serving any other purpose, had preserved
it in its pristine splendor. One might imagine that no one had ever been
in there, barring an occasional awed maid with a dust cloth, until
Rodney and Rose descended on it.

"It's dreadfully hot in here," Rose said. "You'd better take off your
coat." She squeezed in between the table and one of the chairs, and
seated herself.

Rodney threw down his wet hat, his newspaper, and then his raincoat, on
the table, and slid into a chair opposite her.

If only one of them could have laughed! But the situation was much too
tragic for that.

"I want to tell you first," Rodney said, and his manner was that of a
schoolboy reciting to his teacher an apology that has been rehearsed at
home under the sanction of paternal authority, "I want to tell you how
deeply sorry I am for ... I want to say that you can't be any more
horrified over what I did--that night than I am."

He had his newspaper in his hands again and was twisting it up. His eyes
didn't once seek her face. But they might have done so in perfect
safety, because her own were fixed on his hands and the newspaper they
crumpled.

He didn't presume to ask her forgiveness, he told her. He couldn't
expect that; at least not at present. He went on lamely, in broken
sentences, repeating what he'd said, in still more inadequate words. He
was unable to stop talking until she should say something, it hardly
mattered what. And she was unable to say anything. There was a reason
for this:

The thing that had amazed her by crowding up into her mind, demanding to
be said, was that she forgave him utterly--if indeed she had anything
more to forgive than he. She'd never thought it before. Now she realized
that it was true. He was as guiltless of premeditation on that night as
she. If he had yielded to a rush of passion, even while his other
instincts felt outraged by the things she had done, hadn't she yielded
too, without ever having tried to