Arrived at the gate, she pushed it open.
"Good-night," she snapped. "Please don't come in."
And within the gate she deliberately stared at him with an unforgiving
gaze. The impartial lamp-post lighted the scene.
"Good-night," she repeated harshly. She was saying to herself: "He
really does take it in the most beautiful way. I could do anything I
liked with him."
"Good-night," said Louis, with strict punctilio.
When she got to the top of the steps she remembered that Louis had the
latch-key. He was gone. She gave a wet sob and impulsively ran down
the steps and opened the gate. Louis returned. She tried to speak and
could not.
"I beg your pardon," said Louis. "Of course you want the key."
He handed her the key with a gesture that disconcertingly melted the
rigour of all her limbs. She snatched at it, and plunged for the gate
just as the tears rolled down her cheeks in a shower. The noise of the
gate covered a fresh sob. She did not look back. Amid all her quite
real distress she was proud and happy--proud because she was old
enough and independent enough and audacious enough to quarrel with
her lover, and happy because she had suddenly discovered life. And the
soft darkness and the wind, and the faint sky reflections of distant
furnace fires, and the sense of the road winding upward, and the very
sense of the black mass of the house in front of her (dimly lighted at
the upper floor) all made part of her mysterious happiness.
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