“It doesn’t matter,” he rejoined, walking on beside her, his heart beating violently. “Down, you dog,” he said aloud.
“What is that?” She raised her eyes and he looked into them, and they both smiled.
“Not true, and horrid, as usual,” she answered, and she was hot and angry all at once.
He pulled at his moustache and sniffed. “I can smell the hedges—ah, the country is a gay deceiver—it smells pleasant enough, but it’s treacherous. The country, my dear Emma, has done more to corrupt man, to drag him down, to turn him loose upon his lower instincts, than morphine, alcohol and women. That’s why I like it, that’s why it’s the perfect place for women. They are devils and should be driven out, and as there’s more room in the country and consequently less likelihood of driving them out in too much of a hurry, there is more time for amusement.” He watched her out of the corner of his eye as he said these things to note if they were ill advised. They seemed to leave her cold, but tense.
A little later they passed the barns again.
But she had heard something, and her heart beat fearfully. She recognized Oscar’s voice. She reached up signing Straussmann to be quiet. She did not want him to hear; she wished that the ground would yawn, would swallow him up.
“See that yellow flower down there,” she said, pointing toward the end of the path they had just come. “I want it, I must have it, please.” He did as he was bid, amiably enough.
She listened—she heard the voice of Oscar’s little sweetheart:
“It seems as if we were one already.”... It was high, resolute, unflagging, without emotion, a childish parroting of some novel. Oscar’s voice came back, half smothered:
“Do you really care—more than you like Berkeley?”
“Yes, I do,” she answered in the same false treble, “lots more.”
“Come here,” he said softly—the hay rustled.
“I don’t want to—the rye gets into my hair and spoils it.”
“Oh, Oscar, you’re so strong,” she giggled, and it sent a cold shudder through Emma’s being.
Then presently, “What’s the matter, Oscar—why, you’re crying.”
“I’m not—well, then yes, I am—what of it?—you’ll understand, too, some day.”
She was evidently frightened, because she said in a somewhat loosened key, “No one would ever believe that we were as much in love as we are, would they, Oscar?”