"Quite alone in the world, you know!" said Ingpen. "I'm hanged if I know what she'd have done without me. She hadn't a friend--at any rate she hadn't a friend with a grain of sense. Astonishing how solitary some couples are! ... It aged her frightfully. She's much younger than she looks. Happily there was a bit of money--enough in fact."
Deeply as Edwin had been impressed by his romantic discovery of a woman in Ingpen's room at Hanbridge, he was still more impressed by it now. He saw the whole scene again, and saw it far more poetically. He accused himself of blindness, and also of a certain harshness of attitude towards the woman. He endowed her now with wondrous qualities. The adventure, in its tragicalness and its clandestine tenderness, was enchanting. How exquisite must be the relations between Ingpen and the woman if without warning she could go to his lair at night and wait confidently for his return! How divine the surprise for him, how ardent the welcome! He envied Ingpen. And also he admired him, for Ingpen had obviously conducted the affair with worthy expertise. And he had known how to win devotion.
With an air of impartiality Ingpen proceeded:
"You wouldn't see her quite at her best, I'm afraid. She's very shy--and naturally she'd be more shy than ever when you saw her. She's quite a different woman when the shyness has worn off. The first two or three times I met her I must say I didn't think she was anything more than a nice well-meaning creature,--you know what I mean. But she's much more than that. Can't play, but I believe she has a real feeling for music. She has time for reading, and she does read. And she has a more masculine understanding than nearly any other woman I've ever come across."
"You wait a bit!" thought Edwin. This simplicity on the part of a notable man of the world pleased him and gave him a comfortable sense of superiority.
Aloud he responded sympathetically:
"Good! ... Do I understand she's living in the Five Towns now?"
"Yes," said Ingpen, after a hesitation. He spoke in a peculiar, significant voice, carefully modest. The single monosyllable conveyed to Edwin: "I cannot deny it. I was necessary to this woman, and in the end she followed me!"
Edwin was impressed anew by the full revelation of romance which had concealed itself in the squalid dailiness of the Five Towns.
"In fact," said Ingpen, "you never know your luck. If she'd been free I might have been fool enough to get married."