“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “Has he complained of my keeping him here?”
Lionel pushed back his chair.
“Ah, Mrs. Winn! Mrs. Winn!” he exclaimed half laughingly, and half reproachfully; “you know he wouldn’t complain. He only told me that he wasn’t coming back just yet, and I — well, I thought I saw why he wasn’t.”
“Then,” she said, turning careful eyes away from him, “if he hasn’t complained, I hardly see why you should attack me like this. I suppose you think I am as unnatural and — and temporary as our surroundings?”
Lionel stood up and looked down at her in a puzzled way.
“Oh, I say, you know,” he ventured, “you’re not playing very fair, are you? Of course I’m not attacking you. I thought we were friends, and I wanted to help you.”
“Friends!” she said. Her voice broke suddenly into a hard little laugh. “Well, what else have you to suggest to me about my husband — out of your friendship for me?”
“You’re not forgiving me,” he reminded her gently, not dreaming what it was she had been prepared to forgive. “But perhaps I’d better go on and get it all out while I’m about it. You know it isn’t only that I think he won’t care for staying on here, but I think it’s a bit of a risk. I don’t want to frighten you, but after a man’s had black water fever twice, he’s apt to be a little groggy, especially about the lungs. England isn’t honestly a very good winter place for him for a year or two — ”
Estelle flung up her head.
“If he was going to be an invalid,” she said, “he oughtn’t to have married me!”