FullReads

“I have something to say to you.”

He bent before her stiffly.

“I am at your service.”

There was something in his words that sounded ironical to her, something that sent the blood to her face in a burning wave. She turned in silence and ascended the steps in front of him.

She found the door unlocked, but the hall was empty, and lighted only by the great flames that spouted up from the log-fire on the open hearth.

Clearly the rest of the family had retired, and a sudden, sharp suspicion flashed through Nan that her husband had deliberately laid his plans for this private interview with her.

It set her heart pounding again within her, but she braced herself to treat him with a high hand. He must not, he should not, assume the mastery over her.

Silently she waited as he shut and bolted the great door, and then quietly crossed the shadowy hall to join her.

She had dropped her cloak from her shoulders, and the firelight played ruddily over her dress of shimmering white, revealing her slim young beauty in every delicate detail. Very pale, but erect and at least outwardly calm, she faced him.

“What I have to say to you,” she said, “will make you very angry; but I hope you will have the patience to listen to me, because it must be said.”

He did not answer. He merely stooped and stirred the fire to a higher blaze, then turned and looked at her with those ever-watching eyes of his.

Nan’s hands were clenched unconsciously. She was making the greatest effort of her life.

“It has come to this,” she said, forcing herself with all her quivering strength to speak quietly. “I do not wish to be your wife. I have realized for some time that my marriage was a mistake, and I thought it possible, I hoped with all my heart, that you would see it, too. I suppose, by your coming back in this way, that you have not yet done so?”

He was standing very quietly before her with his hands behind him. Notwithstanding her wild misgiving, she could not see that he was in any way angered by her words. He seemed to observe her with a grave interest. That was all.

A tremor of passion went through her. His passivity was not to be borne. In some curious fashion it hurt her. She felt as though she were beating and bruising herself against bars of iron.

“Surely,” she said, and her voice shook in spite of her utmost effort to control it–“surely you must see that you are asking of me more than I can possibly give. I own that I am–nominally–your wife, but I realize now that I can never be anything more to you than that. I cannot go away with you. I can never make my home with you. I married you upon impulse. I did you a great wrong, but you will admit that you hurried me into it. And now that–that my eyes are open, I find that I cannot go on. Would it–would it–” She was faltering under that unchanging gaze, but she compelled herself to utter the question–“be quite impossible to–to get a separation?”

“Quite,” said Piet.

He did not raise his voice, but she shrank at the brief word, shrank uncontrollably as if he had struck her.

He went on quite steadily, but his eyes gave her no rest. They seemed to her to gleam red in the glancing firelight.

“I do not admit that our marriage was a mistake. I was always aware that you married me for my money. But on the other hand I was willing to pay your price. I wanted you. And–I want you still. Nothing will alter that fact. I am sorry if you think you have made a bad bargain, for you will have to abide by it. Perhaps some day you will change your mind again. But it is not my habit to change mine. That is, I think, all that need be said upon the subject.”