"I don't see how I could have done anything different; I don't see it now any more than I saw it then. You won't forgive Oliver, I suppose—my old Sir Oliver! In fact, if I know you, Cousin Arthur, you've been trying to paint him blacker in the hope of making me whiter! But he gives me a wonderful life. I never really knew what a man could do for a woman's life before. Well, I'd had no chance of understanding that, had I? It's not being in love that I mean so much. After all, I've been in love before—yes, and with Godfrey, as I told you once. And Oliver's not an angel, of course—about as far from it as a man could be——"
"I should think so," Arthur remarked drily.
She smiled at him. "But there's a sort of largeness about him, about the way he feels as well as the things he goes in for. And then his courage! Oh, but I daresay you don't want to hear me talk about him. I really came only to talk about Margaret."
"You must know I'm glad to hear you're happy."
She caught a tone of constraint in his voice; the words sounded almost formal. "Yes, I suppose you are—and ready to let it go at that?" she asked quickly, with a little resentment.
"What else can I do—or say?" he answered, slowly and with a puzzled frown. "I've got nothing more to do with it. I really belong to—to what you've left behind you. I made a queer mess of my part of it, but still I did belong there. I don't belong to this new life of yours, do I?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "No, I suppose you don't. You belong to Hilsey? Is that it? And I'm trying to get you on my side—unfairly?" She challenged him now with something like anger.
"Oh, it's not a question of sides! I tried not to take sides. The thing went too deep for that. And why must I, why should I? But there's what's happened—the state of things, you see."
"And the state of things makes you belong to Hilsey, and prevents your having anything to do with me?"
"That's putting it too strongly——" he began.