“Because,” he said, “it would be indecent for me to be thinking of anything else. He may be dead. There's no knowing. This time last night I could walk and talk and laugh with him. He was full of plans. He was something real that I could touch. To-night he has vanished.”
“Vanished!” She repeated the word with a sigh which was almost of contentment.
“I was wondering,” he continued, and then halted. “You were wondering?” she prompted.
Drawing himself erect, he faced her. Her bantering tone had roused his indignation. Yet, even in his revulsion, he thrilled to the sweetness of her luring eyes, glinting at him palely through the shadows.
“He was more your friend, much more your friend, than mine,” he reproached her. “There's probably been a tragedy. Yet you don't seem to care. One might even believe you were glad.”
“Not glad. Not exactly.” She spoke smilingly, averting her eyes. “But as for caring—why should I?”
He laughed quietly. “Yes, why should you? Why should you care what happens to any man?”
“But I hated him,” she protested. “He had given me cause to hate him.”
“You had a strange way of showing it. You made yourself most amazingly charming. He could never have guessed—no one could ever have guessed who watched you with him, that you—”
“Ah, no. Only you and I—we knew. It wasn't our business to let everybody guess.”