“Tell me,” he said, “what can I do? You haven’t told me the facts. Do you trust me a little?”
“There are no facts.”
“But he——”
“Oh, leave him!” she exclaimed. “Let’s go down to where all the people are. What time is it?” she added suddenly, as if awaking from a wild dream to the surer business of the day.
He told her, but was certain she did not hear, her thoughts having fled great distances by then. As he followed her, he realized dimly with how great a force he had to contend, but he did not understand how indirectly this force could act. He felt sure that Ordith must have been in some manner definitely violent—have tried to kiss her, he angrily imagined. Then her “Oh, leave him!” echoed in his ears.
“Margaret,” he said, “I haven’t been trying—to find things out. I wanted to help if I could.”
She turned to him with a little movement of confidence which was a full reward. “I know. Don’t think I am ungrateful. I shan’t ever forget. Your coming made everything different—and secure again. I would tell you about it if I could—if there was anything to tell; I think telling would help. But there’s nothing—nothing tangible, at least.” She shivered, as if something cold and flat had touched her. “Only a feeling of having been caught and of having broken free again.”
Together they went into the ball-room, where faces, still smiling their response to some jest spoken a moment earlier, seemed out of touch with reality. This colour, this light on chin and throat, this flash of jewels and gleaming of shirt-fronts, was as a picture in oils that had hung unnoticed while life pursued its course swiftly, and to which, now there was breathing space, attention had reluctantly returned.