“Tell me a little more about yourself,” he went on. “Are you still living at that place you hated so—Surbiton?”
“N-no,” as if the topic was distasteful. “By the way, I saw you there once.”
“But—I have never been there in my life,” he answered, very mystified.
“Not on land, perhaps—but by water. You were in a boat—and the one I was in as nearly as possible ran you down. I was steering—or rather, ought to have been,” she added with a little smile. “You didn’t see me, but I recognised you.”
“I remember now,” he said. “And was that you? Yes, I remember perfectly. Oh, Alma—if only I had seen you!”
It seemed to escape him in spite of himself, and it conveyed volumes. There had been just a spice of bitterness in the motive that had urged her to let him know she had seen him and with whom, but now she would have given worlds to withdraw the remark—such a turning of the knife in the wound did it seem. And now she realised plainer than words could tell, that if he had seen her on the occasion in question, it would have made all the difference in the world to her life and his.
“What is this place we are coming to?” he said, as the steamer’s bell begun to ring to the accompaniment of a sensible slackening of the paddles.
“Rolle. The next is Morges, and then Ouchy, where we land. We are going to stay a few days in Lausanne.”
“What, at this time of year? Why you will be roasted?”
“So we shall. But the Sitgreaves want to get some things there before going on to the mountains.”