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TWILIGHT
181

"I don't think I misunderstand you," he said tenderly.

"I am sorry," she answered vaguely. "It was my fault."

"Fault! You have not a fault!"

"But now I want you to go."

His eyes questioned and caressed her.

"Until next week then."

He took her in his arms, but her lips were cold, unresponsive, it was almost an apology she made:

"I am really so tired."

When he had gone, lying among the pillows on the sofa, she said to herself:

"Greek roots! He is supposed to be more learned in Greek roots than any one in England. But the root word of this he missed entirely. REACTION. That is the root word. I don't know what came over me. Why is he so unlike other men? What if such a moment had come to me with Peter Kennedy!"

She smiled faintly all by herself in the firelight. How impossible it was that she should have played like this with Peter Kennedy. He moved her no more than a log of wood. Then she was suddenly ashamed, her cheeks dyed red in the darkness.