They stood looking at each other. She wanted to cry out something, but she did not know what it was. His face was very haggard with an irony she had never known about his mouth. In the end, all her stiff lips found to say was:
“I am glad you are better of your illness.”
“Thank you. I have something on which to congratulate you also, it seems.” The flavour of irony was on his tongue as well as on his lips.
“I did not know it was your land,” she stammered, and he stared a moment.
“Oh, that,” he said carelessly. “You’re welcome. It’s not the loss of that I mind.”
There was a silence. They had sat down in a dim corner. At last her voice came faintly.
“What then have you lost?” She hid her hand on which shone the yellow diamond.
“Something I shall get along very well without in future, I dare say—faith in women.”
She couldn’t bear the bitterness of his tone and words. They hurt more than if he had taken a knife to her. Yet a miserable pride and wrath made her pursue the subject to the last fence.
“You speak as though it is some fault other than your own?”