"
"That's what I thought he meant at first," said Rose, "but it wasn't. He
didn't mean it was too late because of my being married to you. He meant
too late because of him. He couldn't love me, he said, as I deserved,
because he'd been in love so many times before, himself.
"And then, of course, just when I should have been looking awfully sad
and sympathetic, I had to go and grin, and he wanted to know why, and I
said, 'Nothing,' but he insisted, you know, so then I told him.
"Well, it was just what I said to you a while ago--that I didn't know
any men ever talked like that except in books by Hichens or
Chambers--why do you suppose they're both named Robert?--and he went
perfectly purple with rage and said I was a savage. And then he got
madder still and said he'd like to be a savage himself for about five
minutes; and I wanted to tell him to go ahead and try, and see what
happened, but I didn't. I asked him how he wanted his tea, and he didn't
want it at all, and went away."
As she finished, she glanced up into his face for a hardly-needed
reassurance that the episode looked to him, as it had looked to her,
trivial.
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