And the next minute Phoebe would be so adorable that he would repent miserably of his brutality.
Then, one hot, still evening, he was alone with her in the little sitting-room. Outside, on the grass plot, her father sat in his bath-chair while Effie read aloud to him (out of her turn). Her voice made a cover for Gibson's voice and Phoebe's.
Phoebe was dressed (for the heat) in a white gown with wide, open sleeves. Her low collar showed the pure, soft swell of her neck to the shoulder-line.
She was sitting upright and demure in a straight-backed chair, with her hands folded quietly in her lap.
"That isn't a very comfortable chair you've got," he said.
He knew that she was tired with pushing the bath-chair about all day.
"It's the one I always sit in," said Phoebe.
"Well, you're not going to sit in it now," he said.
He drew the armchair out of its sacred corner and made her sit in that. He put a cushion at her head and a footstool at her feet.
He could not tell whether the little shaking breath she drew were a laugh or a sigh.
She lay back, letting her tired body slacken into rest.
The movement loosened the little combs that kept the coil of her brown hair in place. Phoebe abhorred dishevelment. She put up her hands to her head. Her wide sleeve fell back, showing the full length of her white arms.
He saw another woman stretching her arms to the man who leaned above her. He saw the movement of her hands--hands of the same texture and whiteness as her body, instinct with its impulses. A long procession of abominations passed through the white arch of her arms--the arch she raised in triumph and defiance, immortalizing her sin.
He was very tender with Phoebe that night, for his heart was wrung with compunction.
"She's adorable," he said to himself; "but I can't live with _that_."
Gibson left by the early train next day. He went without saying good-bye and without leaving an explanation or an address.
Phoebe held her head high, and said, day after day, "There's sure to be a letter."
Three weeks passed and no letter came. Phoebe saw that it was all over.
One day she was found (Effie found her) on her bed, crying. She was so weak she let Effie take her in her arms.
"If I only knew what I had done," she said. "Oh, Effie! what could have made him go away?"