“Did you notice anything?”
“Notice anything?”
“About Margaret?”
“No. What of her?”
“Merely that she looked straight at me, saw me, and wouldn’t recognize me.” John laughed shortly. “I wonder what crime I’ve committed.”
“I think she was excited to-night. Sometimes when I spoke to her she answered me in that vague way of hers, as if her thoughts were far away. Do you remember how strange she was that Sunday after our dance in town? It was the same thing to-night.”
“Ordith?”
“Perhaps. She danced with him. I remember, as they passed me, I heard her laugh—higher pitched than usual.” And Hugh added, with a touch of embarrassment: “Almost as if she was afraid.”
John paused to consider. He saw her in Ordith’s arms, moving to the music, her head thrown back a little, laughing. Then, with directness that surprised himself, he asked suddenly the question he had long desired and never dared to ask: