"You were! You were!" she said sharply, annoyed at the contradiction. But quickly remembering herself, she continued with only a regretful sadness in her voice:
"Always cold, always matter-of-fact. Bob of the head in the morning, jerk of the head at night. When I was happy over a new dress or a new hat you never noticed it--until the bill came in. You were always matter-of-fact, absolutely confident I was yours, body and soul."
"By George, that's too much!" he cried furiously. "That's a fine one. I'm to blame--of course I'm to blame!"
"Listen! No, listen quietly, for when I've told you I shall go."
Despite himself, his anger vanished at her quiet command.
"If I listen," he thought, "it's all over."
He still believed he was resisting, only he wanted to hear as he had never wanted anything else--to learn why she was not going to the other man.
"Yes, what has happened is only natural," she said, drawing her eyebrows a little together and seeming to reason more with herself. "It had to happen before I could really be sure of my love for you. You men know and choose from the knowledge of many women. A woman, such as I, coming to you as a girl, must often and often ask herself if she would still make the same choice. Then another man comes into her life and she makes of him a test to know once and for all the answer to her question. Jack, that was it. That was the instinct that drove me to try if I _could_ leave you--the instinct I did not understand then, but that I do now, when it's too late."
"Yes, she is clever," he thought to himself, listening to her, desiring her the more as he admired what he did not credit. He felt that he wanted to be convinced and with a last angry resistance, said:
She looked at him with her clear, gray look, a smile in her eyes, sadness on her lips.
He did not reply. Finally he said bruskly:
"And when did--did the change come to you?"
"In the carriage, when every turn of the wheel, every passing street, was rushing me away from you. I thought of you--alone--lost--and suddenly I knew. I beat with my fists on the window and called to the coachman like a madman. I don't know what I said. I came back."
She stopped, pressing back the tears that had started on her eyelids at the memory. She controlled herself, gave a quick little nod, without offering her hand, went toward the door.