“Ah!” he said with a sudden grimness. “Something else has done that.”
She was aware of a sharp pain at her heart that was almost unendurable. It took all her courage to meet his eyes. But she forced her voice to steadiness. “Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that I have come to know my own mind rather than that I have changed it. I thought I loved you, but it was a mistake. As to whether you ever loved me, I have no illusions at all. You never did.”
He got up. She saw his face twist as if he were in pain, but she knew that it was nothing physical that brought that look to his eyes, banishing the cynicism. “You seem very sure of that,” he said, and turned from her to light a cigarette. “So I am struck off the list, am I? Do you think you are altogether wise to do that—after what happened last night?”
The question surprised her, but it was wholly without malice. She could not take offence.
She answered him in a low voice, for the first time conscious of the dread of giving pain. “I have really no choice. I couldn’t do anything else.”
The old maddening question that she had had to answer so often. She tried to summon the old battling spirit, but it did not respond to her call. Her pride had been flung in the dust. What did she propose to do? Was there anything left that could ever restore her self-respect?
With a gesture that was quite unconsciously pathetic, she turned and went to the window in silence.
Rotherby smoked without speaking for a few seconds. If he felt the appeal of her hopelessness, he did not show it.
It was she who spoke first at length, without turning, and it was as though she uttered the words to herself with the dreary persistence of despair.
“What are you going to do?” said Rotherby.
There was a quality of ruthlessness in his voice that pierced her despair. She swung round abruptly and faced him. There was majesty in her bearing, though with it was mingled the desperation of the hunted animal at bay.
“I will work,” she said. “I am not afraid of work. And I don’t care what I do.”
He came and joined her at the window. “Yes, it sounds all right,” he said. “But you haven’t the strength, and you know it.”
She shrank at the blunt words, for they struck her hard. She knew—it was useless to dispute it—that she lacked the strength.