"You were wrong then, and Harry Tristram was right." She flung the words at him in a fierce hostility. "Now he's not Lord Tristram any longer, I don't want to marry him." She paused. "You believe he isn't, don't you? There's no doubt?"
"I believe him all right. He's a fellow you can rely on."
"But it's all so strange. Why has he done it? Well, that doesn't matter. At any rate he's right about me."
Bob sat stolidly in his chair. He did not know at all what to say, but he did not mean to go. He had put
no spoke in the Major's wheel yet, and to do that was his contract with Harry Tristram, as well as his own strong desire.
"Have you sympathized—or condoled—or triumphed—enough?" she asked; she was fierce still.
"I don't know that I've had a chance of saying anything much," he observed with some justice.
"I really don't see what you can have to say. What is there to say?"
"Well, there's just this to say—that I'm jolly glad of it."
She was startled by his blunt sincerity, so startled that she passed the obvious chance of accusing him of cruelty toward Harry Tristram, and thought only of how his words touched herself.