With that slight readjusting movement the two men in him became one, so
that when the reasoning man reached slowly his conclusion he formulated
it thus: "It couldn't happen. If it did, it wouldn't happen this way.
He" (even to himself he could not say "they") "would have managed
better, or worse." At last his intellect, the lazy, powerful beast, was
roused and dealt masterfully with the situation.
He had to pass the fireplace to get back to his seat, which Gertrude
guarded. As he passed he caught sight of his own face in the glass over
the chimney-piece, a face with inflamed eyes and a forehead frowning and
overcast, and cheeks flushed with shame. Gertrude, looking up at him
from the manuscript she brooded over, instinctively made way for him to
pass.
It was she who spoke first. Her finger was on the pencil-marks again.
"Then that," said she, pointing, "that is not to stand?"
"Of course it isn't." He answered coldly. "It wasn't meant to. It's
rubbed out."
He looked at her for the first time with dislike. He did not suspect her
as the source of abominable suggestion. He was only thinking that if it
hadn't been for her he wouldn't have seen any of these things.
She shrank before his look. "Does he think I wanted him to see it?" she
said to herself.
Already she was clean in her own eyes. Already she had persuaded herself
that she had not wanted that. And in the same breath of thought she
asked herself, "What _did_ he see?"
She smiled as she answered his cold answer.
"I thought it was rubbed out, but I couldn't be quite sure."
They were so absorbed that they did not hear the door open.
[Illustration: Jane stood in the doorway, quietly regarding them]
Jane stood in the doorway quietly regarding them.