“Then why—why did you ask me?” His voice was low-pitched, little more than a whisper, but there was in it a huskiness that showed the strain he was undergoing. Mimi felt sick at heart as she saw the changes that had taken place in him. He was no longer the laughing, debonair, assured individual he had been that day they met in Paris. His eyes burned with a blazing intensity from the deep sockets in which they were sunk, his hands twitched as he alternately closed and opened them, he kept his lips pressed tightly together, and his words came short and crisp from the emotion that lay behind them. Mimi felt her resolution to tell him all slipping away into thin air. She did not want to hurt him further, though she knew that for his own good and hers she must tell him now. She braced herself as though she were about to plunge into an icy bath in January.
“I’ll tell you why I sent for you,” she began. “I did run away from you in Paris. And I’ve been running from you here in New York because I knew