“Ah, I do, I do,” Muriel wailed, wringing her hands.
“Well, you know,” Kate commented, somewhat brutally, “seeing how you’ve been carrying on this last month, I shouldn’t have said myself that you were really stuck on him.”
“You don’t understand,” Muriel moaned. “I wanted to be properly engaged to him, but he wouldn’t hear of it—I told you at the time. I don’t believe he ever wanted to marry me at all,” she exclaimed, passionately. “I believe he only wanted me to run away with him.”
Suddenly she looked up, with a curious light in her face. “I wonder....” She paused. She recalled the words he had said when he first knew her: “Why don’t you break loose?” And then last night he had said: “I shall never get to the real you until you cut loose from all this.” Could it be that the manner of his going away was meant to be a sort of silent gesture, a beckoning to her to follow?
She was so absorbed in her thoughts that her tears dried upon her face; and presently Kate was able to induce her to make somewhat more than a pretence of tasting the little dinner which had been sent up to them.
Later in the evening, when Benifett Bindane had come upstairs, and when Muriel had gone to her own room, Kate told her husband that she would sleep that night with her friend.
“As you wish, my dear,” he answered pleasantly. “You must help her to get over this business. She’ll soon live it down, I expect.”
Kate looked annoyed. “You needn’t be so damned cheerful about it,” she said. “I sometimes think you haven’t got a heart at all.”
He sat down loosely, and stared at her for some moments, as though about to make a profound remark.
“Spit it out,” said Kate encouragingly.