cheeks.

He began to feel he had been a brute.

She continued: "You ought to have given me a day to think it over,
instead of rushing away as you did. You ought to have known that a
woman's pride won't let her yield without being pressed to yield. I
wanted you to press me; I wanted to make a fresh start with you; I
wanted to help you with your big work! Clifford when _will_ you learn to
read a woman?"

"What's your suggestion now?" he asked.

"My suggestion is your own--to wipe out the past, and start our married
life afresh. A few days ago I went to see a doctor--a man in Cavendish
Square who has a big reputation for women's ailments. Father insisted on
my going to consult him, and he was right. I ought to have gone to him
months ago."

"What did he tell you?"

"The long and short of it is that I must give up society engagements and
all excitements of that kind, and lead a very quiet life. I ought to go
to some quiet place away from people, with someone with me whom I care
for and who cares for me. That was the gist of his prescription. Of
course I have a special dietary and medicine to take, but that's only
incidental!"

Her voice held a pathetic braveness, and Riviere was touched by it.

"I'm awfully sorry," he murmured.

"It's hard on me, to give up all that."

"I know."

"It's meant a big fight with myself. Look at me--you can see it in my
face. I'm looking a wreck."

"The kind of life you've been leading would crack up any constitution.
I'm glad you've taken advice in time."

"It was the turning-point for me."

"Where are you going for your rest-cure?"

"Isn't that for you to decide, Clifford dear?"

Riviere roused himself with an effort akin to that of Ulysses in the
house of Circe.

"I'd better be quite frank with you," he answered. "I can't live with
you again as man and wife."

"I realise your feeling so well. I admire you for it. It brings us
nearer together. You feel yourself under an obligation to Miss Verney
because of her intervention between you and that vitriol-thrower. You
don't know just how you can repay it. Obviously you can't offer her
money. A girl of her finely-strung feelings couldn't take a pension from
you.... Now I have a suggestion that clears away the difficulty
completely."

"What is it?" asked Riviere non-committally.

"Let _me_ make her an allowance. Let the money pass through my hands to
her. It needn't be a large allowance. I daresay she could live nicely o