It seems to me an insult to her as
a woman and as----"
"A woman!" He burst out laughing harshly.
"Is THAT what you call a woman? 'Madame, ce
n'est que pour rire!'"
"That is not fair!" she said. "You have no
right to speak of her in that way to anyone--
especially to another woman!"
He turned away, and lay with wide-open eyes,
looking out of the window at the sinking sun. She
lowered the blind and closed the shutters, that he
might not see it set; then sat down at the table
by the other window and took up her knitting
again.
"Would you like the lamp?" she asked after a moment.
He shook his head.
When it grew too dark to see, Gemma rolled up
her knitting and laid it in the basket. For some
time she sat with folded hands, silently watching
the Gadfly's motionless figure. The dim evening
light, falling on his face, seemed to soften away its
hard, mocking, self-assertive look, and to deepen
the tragic lines about the mouth. By some fanciful
association of ideas her memory went vividly
back to the stone cross which her father had set
up in memory of Arthur, and to its inscription:
"All thy waves and billows have gone over me.
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