However,
neither of them made a movement to leave the drawing-room, Savina Grove
returned slowly to her chair. "No one, I think, has ever found it out
like that." Her remark was without intelligible preliminary, but he
grasped her meaning at once. "How you happened to stir it in me I have
no idea--" she stopped and looked at him intently. "A terrible
accident! I would have done anything, gone any distance, to avoid it. I
am unable, with you, to pretend--that's curious--and that in itself
gives me a feeling of helplessness. All sorts of impossible things are
coming into my head to say to you. I mustn't." Her voice was brittle.
"There is no need for you to say what would make you miserable," he
replied. "I am not in a position to question you; at the same time I
can't pretend--perhaps the safest thing of all--not to understand what,
entirely against your will, I've seen. I am very much, very naturally,
disturbed by it; but you have nothing to worry about."
"You say that because you don't know, you can't possibly think, what
goes on here," she pressed a hand to her breast. "Why," her words were
blurred in a mounting panic, "I have lost my sense of shame with you.
It's gone." She gazed despairingly around as if she expected to see
that restraining quality embodied and recoverable in the propriety of
the room. "I'm frightened," she gasped. Lee rose instinctively, and
moved toward her with a gesture of reassurance, but she cried, "Don't!
don't! don't!" three times with an increasing dread.
Pages:
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189