With calmness she did not feel she forced her voice to steadiness.
"Most women make fools of themselves over some animal, faute de mieux," she said lightly. "I only follow the crowd."
"Is it faute de mieux with you?" The sharp rejoinder struck her like a physical blow. Unable to trust herself, unable to check the quivering of her lips, she turned away to get another cup and saucer from a near cabinet.
"Answer me, Gillian," he said tensely. "Is it for want of something better that you give so much affection to that cringing beast"--he pointed to the poodle who was crawling abjectly on his stomach toward her from the bureau where he had taken refuge--"is it a child that your arms are wanting--not a dog?" His face was drawn, and he stared at her with fierce hunger smouldering in his eyes. He was hurting himself beyond belief--was he hurting her too? Could anything that he might say touch her, stir her from the calm placidity that sometimes, in contradiction to his own restlessness, was almost more than he could tolerate? She had fulfilled the terms of their bargain faithfully, apparently satisfied with its limitation. She appeared content with this damnable life they were living. But a sudden impulse had come to him to assure himself that his supposition was a true one, that the outward content she manifested did not cover longings and desires that she sought to hide. Yet how would it benefit either of them for him to wring from her a secret to which he, by his own doing, had no right? In winning her consent to this divided marriage he had already done her injury enough--he need not make her life harder. And just now, in a moment of ungovernable passion, he had said a brutal thing, a thing beyond all forgiveness. His face grew more drawn as he moved nearer to her.
"Gillian, I asked you a question," he began unsteadily. She confronted him swiftly. Her eyes were steady under his, though the pallor of her face was ghastly.
"You are the one person who has no right to ask me that question, Barry." There was no anger in her voice, there was not even reproach, but a gentle dignity that almost unmanned him. He turned away with a gesture of infinite regret.
"I beg your pardon," he said, in a strangled voice. "I was a cur--what I said was damnable." He faced her again with sudden vehemence. "I wish to God I had left you free. I had no right to marry you, to ruin your life with my selfishness, to bar you from the love and children that should have been yours. You might have met a man who would have given you both, who would have given you the full happy life you ought to have. In my cursed egoism I have done you almost the greatest injury a man can do a woman. My God, I wonder you don't hate me!"