"Then you think they'll keep meeting in any case?"
"I've nothing to say about that. I limit myself to believing that in any situation that requires skilful handling your first name is resourcefulness."
I shifted my ground.
"Oh, but when it's such an odious situation!"
"No situation is odious in which you're a participant, just as no view is ugly where there's a garden full of flowers."
He went on with his dinner as complacently as if he had not thrown me into a state of violent inward confusion. All I could do was to summon Hugh's image from the shades of memory into which it had withdrawn, and beg it to keep me true to him. The thought of being false to the man to whom I had actually owned my love outraged in me every sentiment akin to single-heartedness. In a kind of desperation I dragged Hugh's name into the conversation, and yet in doing so I merely laid myself open to another shock.
"You can't be in love with him!"
The words were the same as Mrs. Billing's; the emphasis was similar.
"I am," I declared, bluntly, not so much to contradict the speaker as to fortify myself.
"You may think you are—"