"I told him as
soon as I knew."
"Knew that you couldn't marry him?"
"Knew that I could never live here with him." She looked
about the room, as though the very walls must speak for her.
For a moment Darrow continued to search her face
perplexedly; then their eyes met in a long disastrous gaze.
"Yes----" she said, and stood up.
Below the window they heard Effie whistling for her dogs,
and then, from the terrace, her mother calling her.
"There--THAT for instance," Sophy Viner said.
Darrow broke out: "It's I who ought to go!"
She kept her small pale smile. "What good would that do any
of us--now?"
He covered his face with his hands. "Good God!" he groaned.
"How could I tell?"
"You couldn't tell. We neither of us could." She seemed to
turn the problem over critically. "After all, it might have
been YOU instead of me!"
He took another distracted turn about the room and coming
back to her sat down in a chair at her side. A mocking hand
seemed to dash the words from his lips. There was nothing on
earth that he could say to her that wasn't foolish or cruel
or contemptible...
"My dear," he began at last, "oughtn't you, at any rate, to
try?"
Her gaze grew grave. "Try to forget you?"
He flushed to the forehead. "I meant, try to give Owen more
time; to give him a chance. He's madly in love with you;
all the good that's in him is in your hands.
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