She let herself down on the floor by his side and clasped his knees.

“Philip, don’t be silly.  I’m quick-tempered too and I can understand that I hurt you, but it’s so stupid to sulk over it.  What’s the good of making us both unhappy?  It’s been so jolly, our friendship.”  She passed her fingers slowly over his hand.  “I love you, Philip.”

He got up, disengaging himself from her, and went to the other side of the room.

“I’m awfully sorry, I can’t do anything.  The whole thing’s over.”

“D’you mean to say you don’t love me any more?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“You were just looking for an opportunity to throw me over and you took that one?”

He did not answer.  She looked at him steadily for a time which seemed intolerable.  She was sitting on the floor where he had left her, leaning against the arm-chair.  She began to cry quite silently, without trying to hide her face, and the large tears rolled down her cheeks one after the other.  She did not sob.  It was horribly painful to see her.  Philip turned away.

“I’m awfully sorry to hurt you.  It’s not my fault if I don’t love you.”

She did not answer.  She merely sat there, as though she were overwhelmed, and the tears flowed down her cheeks.  It would have been easier to bear if she had reproached him.  He had thought her temper would get the better of her, and he was prepared for that.  At the back of his mind was a feeling that a real quarrel, in which each said to the other cruel things, would in some way be a justification of his behaviour.  The time passed.  At last he grew frightened by her silent crying; he went into his bed-room and got a glass of water; he leaned over her.

“Won’t you drink a little?  It’ll relieve you.”

She put her lips listlessly to the glass and drank two or three mouthfuls.  Then in an exhausted whisper she asked him for a handkerchief.  She dried her eyes.

“Of course I knew you never loved me as much as I loved you,” she moaned.

“I’m afraid that’s always the case,” he said.  “There’s always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.”

He thought of Mildred, and a bitter pain traversed his heart.  Norah did not answer for a long time.

“I’d been so miserably unhappy, and my life was so hateful,” she said at last.

She did not speak to him, but to herself.  He had never heard her before complain of the life she had led with her husband or of her poverty.  He had always admired the bold front she displayed to the world.

“And then you came along and you were so good to me.  And I admired you because you were clever and it was so heavenly to have someone I could put my trust in.  I loved you.  I never thought it could come to an end.  And without any fault of mine at all.”

Her tears began to flow again, but now she was more mistress of herself, and she hid her face in Philip’s handkerchief.  She tried hard to control herself.