“I don’t understand—­be so good as to . . .”

She stood up.  For a second he believed she intended to go away, and it was as though someone had jerked a string attached to his heart.  It hurt.  He remained open-mouthed and silent.  But she made an irresolute step towards him, and instinctively he moved aside.  They stood before one another, and the fragments of the torn letter lay between them—­at their feet—­like an insurmountable obstacle, like a sign of eternal separation!  Around them three other couples stood still and face to face, as if waiting for a signal to begin some action—­a struggle, a dispute, or a dance.

She said:  “Don’t—­Alvan!” and there was something that resembled a warning in the pain of her tone.  He narrowed his eyes as if trying to pierce her with his gaze.  Her voice touched him.  He had aspirations after magnanimity, generosity, superiority—­interrupted, however, by flashes of indignation and anxiety—­frightful anxiety to know how far she had gone.  She looked down at the torn paper.  Then she looked up, and their eyes met again, remained fastened together, like an unbreakable bond, like a clasp of eternal complicity; and the decorous silence, the pervading quietude of the house which enveloped this meeting of their glances became for a moment inexpressibly vile, for he was afraid she would say too much and make magnanimity impossible, while behind the profound mournfulness of her face there was a regret—­a regret of things done—­the regret of delay—­the thought that if she had only turned back a week sooner—­a day sooner—­only an hour sooner. . . .  They were afraid to hear again the sound of their voices; they did not know what they might say—­perhaps something that could not be recalled; and words are more terrible than facts.  But the tricky fatality that lurks in obscure impulses spoke through Alvan Hervey’s lips suddenly; and he heard his own voice with the excited and sceptical curiosity with which one listens to actors’ voices speaking on the stage in the strain of a poignant situation.

“If you have forgotten anything . . . of course . . .  I . . .”

Her eyes blazed at him for an instant; her lips trembled—­and then she also became the mouth-piece of the mysterious force forever hovering near us; of that perverse inspiration, wandering capricious and uncontrollable, like a gust of wind.

“What is the good of this, Alvan? . . .  You know why I came back. . . .  You know that I could not . . .”

He interrupted her with irritation.

“Then! what’s this?” he asked, pointing downwards at the torn letter.

“That’s a mistake,” she said hurriedly, in a muffled voice.

This answer amazed him.  He remained speechless, staring at her.  He had half a mind to burst into a laugh.  It ended in a smile as involuntary as a grimace of pain.

“A mistake . . .” he began, slowly, and then found himself unable to say another word.