'Most pertinent, if I were poor! But now you see I'm not. I'm well off—and I'm a prodigal.'
'Ah, you know the truth, you never would!'
'I can't know the truth. I shall find it out only if you marry me now.'
'Suppose I said yes? I said yes to Mortimer Mervyn!'
'And you ran away because——'
'Because I told him——'
'Let me put it in my way, please,' interrupted Airey, suavely but decisively. 'Because you weren't a perfect individual, and he was a difficult person to explain that to. Isn't that about it?'
Trix made a woeful gesture; that was rather less than it, she thought.
'And what did he do? Did he come after you? Did he say, "The woman I love is in trouble; she's ruined; she's so ashamed that she couldn't tell the truth even to me. Even from me she has fled, because she has become unbearable to herself and is terrified of me"? Did he say that? And did he put his traps in a bag, and take a special train, and come after you?'
Trix's lips curved in an irrepressible smile at this picture of a line of conduct imputed, even hypothetically, to the Under-Secretary for War. 'He didn't do exactly that,' she murmured.