He leaned earnestly over the table.
‘Look here, Violet, the chances are that we shall never meet again.’
‘It takes two to say that.’
‘Well, I mean that after to-day I should not meet you again. If you were not quite what you are it would be easier. But as it is I find it a little too much of a test. No, don’t mistake me or think that I am weakening. That is impossible. But all the same I don’t want to go through it again.’
‘So sorry if I have upset you.’
He disregarded her irony.
‘We have been very good friends, Violet. Why should we part as enemies?’
‘Why should we part at all?’
‘We won’t go back over that. Now do please look facts in the face and help me to do the right thing, for it would be so much easier if you would help me. If you were a very good and kind girl you would shake my hand, like any other old pal, and wish me joy of my marriage. You know that I should do so if I knew that you were going to be married.’
But the lady was not to be so easily appeased. She took her tea in silence or answered his remarks with monosyllables, while the occasional flash of her dark eyes as she raised them was like the distant lightning which heralds the storm. Suddenly, with a swift rustle of skirts, she was between the door and his chair.