Felicity called him three times before he noticed her--the last time she had to raise her voice quite loudly. He turned then, and saw her sitting with unwonted straightness at the table. Her eyes were wide open, and fixed.
"I have a letter from Connie." She spoke almost crisply. "Why did you not tell me that your wife was enceinte?"
"Why should I tell you?" he asked, staring at her with indifference.
"Had I known it I should not have lived with you. I thought she had let you come here alone through phlegmatic British coldness. If she lost you, it was her affair. This is different. You have not played fair with us."
"Mary was never cold," said Stefan dully, ignoring her accusation.
"That makes it worse." She sat like a ramrod; her face might have been ivory; her hands lay folded across the open letter.
"What do you know--or care--about Mary?" he said heavily; "you never even liked her."
"Your wife bored me, but I admired her. Women nearly always bore me, but I believe in them far more than men, and wish to uphold them."
"You chose a funny way of doing so this time," he said, dropping into his chair with a hopeless sigh.
She looked at him with distaste. "True, I mistook the situation. Conventions are nothing to me. But I have a spiritual code to which I adhere. This affair no longer harmonizes with it. I trust--" Felicity relaxed into her cushions--"you will return to your wife immediately."
"Thanks," he said ironically. "But you're too late. Mary knows, and has thrown me over."
There was silence for several minutes. Then Stefan rose, picked up the draft from the floor, looked at it idly, refolded it into Mary's letter, and put both carefully away in his inside pocket. His face was very pale.
"Adieu, Felicity," he said quietly. "You are quite right about it." And he held out his hand.
"Adieu, Stefan," she answered, waving her hand toward his, but not touching it. "I am sorry about your wife."
Turning, he went in through the French window.
Felicity waited until she heard the thud of the apartment door, then struck her hands together. Yo San appeared.
"A kirtle, Yo San. I must dance away a wound. Afterwards I will think. Be prepared for packing. We may leave Paris. It is time again for work."