He broke in abruptly. "Rosie, why did you tell me Thor never said anything about you and me being married?"
"Oh, what's he been saying?" She clasped her hands on her breast, with a sudden beseeching alarm.
"It's not a matter of what he's been saying. It's only a matter of what you say. And I want you to tell me why he's paying me for marrying you."
He spoke brutally not only because his suffering nerves made him brutally inclined, but in the hope of wringing from her some cry of indignation. But she only said:
"I didn't know he was doing that."
"But you knew he was going to do something."
It seemed useless to poor Rosie to keep anything back now; she could only injure her cause by hedging. "I knew he was going to do something, but he didn't tell me what it would be."
"And why should he do anything at all? What had it to do with him?"
She wrung her hands. "Oh, Claude, I don't know. He came to me. He took me—he took me by surprise. I never thought of anything like that. I never dreamt it."
Claude drew a bow at a venture. "You mean that you never thought of anything like that when he said"—he was obliged to wet his lips with his tongue before he could get the words out—"when he said he was in love with you."