"Oh, I know it can't be pleasant. I only wondered a little, as I saw you last night, why you let yourself be placed in a position that made it necessary."
"I should have wondered at that myself a year ago. I certainly never had any intention of doing it. It's almost as much a surprise to me to be here as it is to you to see me. I suppose you thought I would never turn up again."
"No, I didn't think that. On the contrary, I thought you would turn up—only not just here."
It struck him that she was emphasizing that point for a purpose—to bring him to another point still. He took a few seconds to reflect before deciding that he would follow her lead without further hanging back.
"I shouldn't have returned to New York if I hadn't become engaged to Miss Colfax. You know about that, don't you? I think she meant to tell you."
She inclined her head assentingly, without words. He noticed her dark eyes resting on him with a kind of pity. He had cherished a faint hope—the very faintest—that she might welcome what he had just said sympathetically. In the few minutes during which she remained silent that hope died.
"I suppose," she said, gently, "that you became engaged to Evie before knowing who she was?"
"I fell in love with her before knowing who she was. I'm afraid that when I actually asked her to marry me I had heard all there was to learn."
"Then why did you do it?"
He shrugged his shoulders with a movement acquired by long residence among Latins. His smile conveyed the impossibility of explaining himself in a sentence.