She was not sorry that matters had ended in this way, although she felt it to be illogical. With his kisses upon her mouth, with the pressure of his arm enfolding her, it was almost impossible for her to maintain, in his presence, a doubt of him. It was when he had gone that all the facts which he had ignored came back to her with torturing insistence, and that she blamed herself for not having refused to be reconciled to him until she had ascertained the truth or untruth of a report that had reached her ears.
With a truer lover she might have gone unsatisfied to her dying day. A faithful-hearted man might never have perceived where she was hurt; he would not have been astute enough to discover that he might heal the wound by a few timely words of
explanation. Oliver, keenly alive to his own interests, reopened the subject a few days later of his own accord.
They had completely made up their quarrel—to all outward appearance, at any rate—and were sitting together one afternoon in Ethel's obnoxious drawing-room. They had been laughing together at some funny story of Ethel's associates at the theatre, and to the laughter had succeeded a silence, during which Oliver possessed himself of the girl's hand and carried it gently to his lips.
"Ethel," he said, softly, "what made you so angry with me the other day?"
"Your bad behavior, I suppose!" she said, trying to treat the matter in her usual lively fashion.
"But what was my misbehavior? Did it consist in going so often to the Brookes'?"
"Oh, what does it matter?" exclaimed Ethel, petulantly. "Didn't we agree to forgive and forget? If we didn't, we ought to have done. I don't want to look back."
"But you are doing an injustice to me. Ethel, I dare not say to you that I insist on knowing what it was. But I very strongly wish that you would tell me—so that I might at least try to set your mind at rest."
"Well," said Ethel, quickly, "if you must know—it was only a bit of gossip—servants gossip. I know all that can be said respecting the foolishness of listening to gossip from such a source—but I can't help it. One of the maids at Mr. Brooke's——"