"Yes!" Jack said, his breath choked. "I know it must have been that. I knew even then it was the most wonderful thing ever!"
"I felt it even yesterday, when I passed you at Claremanagh's door," she told him. "I thought: 'There's a man I may never see again, but we could be friends, and we have been friends, though maybe he has forgotten.' When I was in the study behind the curtains—Claremanagh put me there: he didn't want me seen—I was sorry you should believe things not true."
"I did not!" Jack protested.
"No? Then—I am glad."
The man felt ashamed, remembering suddenly what he had believed yesterday—even to-day. Her words, "I am glad," cut him to the quick, and he hurried on along the way of atonement. "You say you asked me here to 'make it my affair'—about Claremanagh. Tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it."
"I don't know yet what is best. We will talk it over," she answered. "But first you will have to hear a story. It's a long story: how I met Claremanagh, and a great many things that came of the meeting. You won't be bored?"
"Do you need an answer to that question?"
Lyda gave him one of her rare smiles. "No. It was conventional of me to ask. But—it will not be conventional to tell you the story. It would be—even dangerous to tell it to some men. I'm not afraid with you."
"Thank you for saying that!"
She held out her hand to him across the small round table. Jack seized it, and pressed it closely instead of kissing the pink palm as he was tempted to do.