Jim stood quite still,
staring fixedly at her; they remained so for a long minute.
"I see," he said then, very quietly. "I'm sorry."
And without another word he turned to the hall door and was gone. Julia
stood still in the hall for a few minutes, curiously numb. All this was
very terrible, very far reaching in its results, very important, but she
could not feel it now. She did feel very tired, exhausted in every fibre
of her body, confused and weary in mind. She put her head in the kitchen
door only long enough to say that she was not hungry, and went upstairs
to fling herself on her bed, grateful for silence and solitude at last.
To Jim the world was turned upside down. He could hardly credit his
senses. His was not a quick brain; processes of thought with him were
slow and ruminative; he liked to be alone while he was thinking. When he
left Julia he went down to his club, found a chair by a library window,
and brooded over this unexpected and unwelcome turn of events, viewing
from all angles this new blow to his pride. He did not believe her
protestations of a change of heart, nothing in his life tended to make
such a belief easy.
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