Panic

Panic.

“Well?” Anthony sat up in bed and looked down at her. The corners of his lips were drooping with depression, his voice was strained and hollow.

Her reply was to raise her hand to her mouth and begin a slow, precise nibbling at her finger.

“We’ve done it,” he said after a pause; then, as she was still silent, he became exasperated. “Why don’t you say something?”

“What on earth do you want me to say?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

“Then stop biting your finger!”

Ensued a short confused discussion of whether or not she had been thinking. It seemed essential to Anthony that she should muse aloud upon last night’s disaster. Her silence was a method of settling the responsibility on him. For her part she saw no necessity for speech—the moment required that she should gnaw at her finger like……