He obeyed her and put his arm round her, and he felt as if his arm must
tell her what she had not learned from his lips. And she thought that now
he must know the truth she had not told him.
"Don't think of dreadful things," he said.
"I won't any more. I don't think I could with you. To me you always mean
the sun, light, and life, and all that is brave and beautiful!"
He took his arm away from her.
"Come, we must sleep, Hermione!" he said. "It's nearly dawn. I can almost
see the smoke on Etna."
He shut the French window and drew the bolt.
She had gone into the bedroom and was standing by the dressing-table. She
did not know why, but a great shyness had come upon her. It was like a
cloud enveloping her. Never before had she felt like this with Maurice,
not even when they were first married. She had loved him too utterly to
be shy with him. Maurice was still in the sitting-room, fastening the
shutters of the window. She heard the creak of wood, the clatter of the
iron bar falling into the fastener. Now he would come.
But he did not come. He was moving about in the room. She heard papers
rustling, then the lid of the piano shut down. He was putting everything
in order.
This orderliness was so unusual in Maurice that it made a disagreeable
impression upon her. She began to feel as if he did not want to come into
the bedroom, as if he were trying to put off the moment of coming. She
remembered that he had seemed shy of her. What had come to them both
to-night? Her instinct moved her to break through this painful, this
absurd constraint.
"Maurice!" she called.
"Yes."
His voice sounded odd to her, almost like the voice of some other man,
some stranger.
"Aren't you coming?"
"Yes. Hermione."
But still he did not come. After a moment, he said: "It's awfully hot to-night!"
"After Africa it seems quite cool to me."
"Does it? I've been--since you've been away I've been sleeping nearly
always out-of-doors on the terrace."
Now he came to the doorway and stood there. He looked at the white room,
at Hermione. She had on a white tea-gown. It seemed to him that
everything here was white, everything but his soul. He felt as if he
could not come into this room, could not sleep here to-night, as if it
would be a desecration. When he stood in the doorway the painful shyness
returned to her.