"That's what I always feel about Ora Pinsent." Irene took courage and introduced the name deliberately.
"Yes," Alice assented briefly. Irene had no doubt that she was thinking of Miss Pinsent's friend also, and when she came to report the conversation to Bowdon this aspect of it took the foremost place.
"If she marries Mr. Jewett," said Irene, "it'll be just in a recoil from Ashley Mead."
Bowdon did not look at her but at the end of the cigarette which he was smoking by the window in Queen's Gate. He had no difficulty in understanding how a recoil might land one in a marriage; this was to him trodden ground.
"She'll be happier with him," Irene continued. "Ora has quite spoilt Ashley for any other woman."
Bowdon agreed that Miss Pinsent might very likely have some such effect, but he expressed the view quite carelessly.
"Besides, really, how could any self-respecting woman think of him now, any more than any man could of her?"
Bowdon made no answer to this question, which was, after all, purely rhetorical.
"But, hang it, Jewett!" he remarked after a pause.