He tightened his arm a little--he swept her skilfully out of the crowd and into a small anteroom; he put her into a chair and bent over her in concern.
"You are not well--what can I do? Can I get you anything?"
For a moment she did not speak, then all at once she rose to her feet; she clutched Micky by both arms; he could feel how her hands shook; there was heartbroken tragedy in her brown eyes as she looked into his face. For once she had forgotten her pride and the indifference into which she had been drilled for twenty years; she was no longer Marie Deland, a sought-after and courted beauty; she was just an unhappy, jealous woman.
"It isn't true, Micky, is it?" she entreated him; her voice was only a broken whisper. "Tell me--oh, please, please, tell me. You don't care for her, do you?--it isn't true, is it?"
She forgot that he did not know of what she was speaking; it seemed as if everybody in the world must know of this tragedy that had desolated her life.
"I can't bear it any longer--it's no use.... I've borne all I can.... O Micky ... Micky."
He forced her hands from his arms; he put her back into the chair and sat beside her; he hated to see the white despair of her face.
"You're ill--upset.... It's all right--everything is all right. You're not to worry any more.... Everything is all right."
At that moment he would have given his soul could he have truthfully said that he wanted her for his wife. He cursed himself for a cur and a coward, but somehow he could not force the words to his lips.
She lay back against the cushions, hiding her face.
There was a tragic moment of silence. Out in the ballroom a noisy one-step was in boisterous progress; there was a great deal of laughter and chattering; the little anteroom seemed as if it must be in another world.
Micky got up. He walked across the room and shut the door. There was a hard look about his mouth. For an instant he stood staring down at the floor irresolutely, then he came back to Marie. He bent over her, but he did not touch her.
"I want to speak to you," he said huskily.
She looked up then. Her face was flashed and quivering, and the brown eyes that for a moment met his own were full of an unutterable grief and shame.