Part 29 (2/2)
Algarcife turned over wearily, and for a time there was silence.
Suddenly Mariana spoke, her voice wavering a little.
”Anthony--are you asleep?”
”No.”
Again she was silent, and again her voice wavered as it rose.
”I have been thinking about--about how poor we are. Will it ever be better?”
”I cannot say. Don't think of it?”
”But I must think of it. I am trying to find a way out of it. Is there any way?”
”None that I know of.”
Mariana half rose and sat down again.
”There is one,” she said, ”and I--”
”What do you mean?” Algarcife demanded, starting up.
Her voice came slowly.
”I mean that I am--that it is better--that I am--going away.”
For a moment the stillness seemed tangible in its oppressiveness.
Mariana's head had fallen upon her hands, and as she stared at the electric light on the opposite corner she heard Anthony's heavy breathing. A moth circled about the ball of light, showing to her fixed gaze like some black spirit of evil hovering above a planet.
Algarcife's tones fell cold and constrained.
”To leave me, you mean?”
”It is the only way.”
”Where will you go?”
Something that was not grief and yet akin to it choked Mariana as she answered.
”I have an offer. The one that--that I told you of. It is an excellent opening--so Morani says. The company goes abroad--next week. And I know the part.”
”And you wish to go?” His voice hurt her with its absence of color.
She lifted her hands and let them fall in her lap. Her gaze left the electric light, where the moth was still revolving in its little orbit.
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