Free The Reef by Edith Wharton

motor-cab, calling out to the driver: "To the Bois!"
     
      As the carriage turned toward the Tuileries she roused herself. "I must go first to the hotel. There may be a message--at any rate I must decide on something."
     
      Darrow saw that the reality of the situation had suddenly forced itself upon her. "I must decide on something," she repeated.
     
      He would have liked to postpone the return, to persuade her to drive directly to the Bois for dinner. It would have been easy enough to remind her that she could not start for Joigny that evening, and that therefore it was of no moment whether she received the Farlows' answer then or a few hours later; but for some reason he hesitated to use this argument, which had come so naturally to him the day before. After all, he knew she would find nothing at the hotel--so what did it matter if they went there?
     
      The porter, interrogated, was not sure. He himself had received nothing for the lady, but in his absence his subordinate might have sent a letter upstairs.
     
      Darrow and Sophy mounted together in the lift, and the young man, while she went into her room, unlocked his own door and glanced at the empty table. For him at least no message had come; and on her threshold, a moment later, she met him with the expected: "No--there's nothing!"
     
      He feigned an unregretful surprise. "So much the better! And now, shall we drive out somewhere? Or would you rather take a boat to Bellevue? Have you ever dined there, on the terrace, by moonlight? It's not at all bad. And there's no earthly use in sitting here waiting."
     
      She stood before him in perplexity.
     
      "But when I wrote yesterday I asked them to telegraph. I suppose they're horribly hard up, the poor dears, and they thought a letter would do as well as a telegram." The colour had risen to her face. "That's why I wrote instead of telegraphing; I haven't a penny to spare myself!"
     
      Nothing she could have said could have filled her listener with a deeper contrition. He felt the red in his own face as he recalled the motive with which he had credited her in his midnight musings. But that motive, after all, had simply been trumped up to justify his own disloyalty: he had never really believed in it. The reflection deepened his confusion, and he would have liked to take her hand in his and confess the injustice he had done her.
     
      She may have interpreted his change of colour as an involuntary protest at being initiated into such shabby details, for she went on with a laugh: "I suppose you can hardly understand what it means to have to stop and think whether one can afford a telegram? But I've always had to consider such things. And I mustn't stay here any longer now- I must try to get a night train for Joigny. Even if the Farlows can't take me in, I can go to the hotel: it will cost less than staying here." She paused again and then exclaimed: "I ought to have thought of that sooner; I ought to have telegraphed yesterday! But I was sure I should hear from them today; and I wanted--oh, I did so awfully want to stay!" She threw a troubled look at Darrow. "Do you happen to remember," she asked, "what time it was when you posted my letter?"
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter VII
     
     
     
     
      D arrow was still standing on her threshold. As she put the question he entered the room and closed the door behind him.
     
      His heart was beating a little faster than usual and he had no clear idea of what he was about to do or say, beyond the definite conviction that, whatever passing impulse of expiation moved him, he would not be fool enough to tell her that he had not sent her letter. He knew that most wrongdoing works, on the whole, less mischief than its useless confession; and this was clearly a case where a passing folly might be turned, by avowal, into a serious