“You don’t quite understand me,” observed Lady Deane coldly. “He did not marry the woman.”
“What, did she give him the—I mean, wouldn’t she have him, Lady Deane?”
“She would have married him; but beside her he saw himself in his true colors. Knowing what he was, how could he dare? That was his punishment, and punishment brought transformation.”
As Lady Deane sketched her idea, her eyes kindled and her tone became animated. Laing admired both her and her idea, and he expressed his feeling’s by saying:
“Remarkable sort of chap, Lady Deane. I shall read it all right, you know.”
“I think you ought,” said she, rising, and leaving him to wonder whether she had “meant anything.”
He gave himself a little shake, as though to escape from the atmosphere of seriousness which she had diffused about him, and looked round. A little way off he saw Dora Bellairs and Charlie Ellerton sitting side by side. His brow clouded. Before Charlie came it had been his privilege to be Miss Bellairs’s cavalier, and although he never hoped, nor, to tell the truth, desired more than a temporary favor in her eyes, he did not quite like being ousted.
“Pretty good for a fellow who’s just had the bag!” he remarked scornfully, referring to Roger Deane’s unauthorized revelation.
It was the day before the exodus to Paris. Dora’s period of weary waiting had worn itself away, and she was acknowledging to Charlie that the last two or three days had passed quicker than she had ever thought they could.
“The first two days I was wretched, the next two gloomy, but these last almost peaceful. In spite of—you know what—I think you’ve done me good on the whole.”