Chapter 29

THORNS AND ROSE PETALS.

He remained stooping and staring up at her, realising the implication
of her words only very slowly.

Then it grew clear to him.

As she saw understanding dawning in his face, she uttered a cry of
consternation. She came forward and sat down upon the little bedroom
chair. She turned to him and began a sentence. "I," she said, and
stopped, with an impatient gesture of her hands. "_Oh_!"

He straightened himself and stood regarding her. The basket of roses
lay overturned between them.

"You thought these came from someone else?" he said, trying to grasp
this inversion of the universe.

She turned her eyes, "I did not know," she panted. "A trap.... Was it
likely--they came from you?"

"You thought they came from someone else," he said.

"Yes," she said, "I did."

"Who?"

"Mr. Baynes."

"That boy!"

"Yes--that boy."

"Well!"

Lewisham looked about him--a man in the presence of the inconceivable.

"You mean to say you have been carrying on with that youngster behind
my back?" he asked.

She opened her lips to speak and had no words to say.

His pallor increased until every tinge of colour had left his face. He
laughed and then set his teeth. Husband and wife looked at one
another.

"I never dreamt," he said in even tones.

He sat down on the bed, thrusting his feet among the scattered roses
with a sort of grim satisfaction. "I never dreamt," he repeated, and
the flimsy basket kicked by his swinging foot hopped indignantly
through the folding doors into the living room and left a trail of
blood-red petals.

They sat for perhaps two minutes, and when he spoke again his voice
was hoarse. He reverted to a former formula. "Look here," he said, and
cleared his throat. "I don't know whether you think I'm going to
stand this, but I'm not."

He looked at her. She sat staring in front of her, making no attempt
to cope with disaster.

"When I say I'm not going to stand it," explained Lewisham, "I don't
mean having a row or anything of that sort. One can quarrel and be
disappointed over--other things--and still go on. But this is a
different thing altogether.

"Of all dreams and illusions!... Think what I have lost in this
accursed marriage. And _now_ ... You don't understand--you won't
understand."

"Nor you," said Ethel, weeping but neither looking at him nor moving
her hands from her lap where they lay helplessly. "_You_ don't