He looked anxiously about him. "Tell me," he asked almost in a whisper, "is he very sick?"
It was her turn to laugh contempt. "Oh, of course you think of yourself first! You're safe, though, here; trust him not to come near me!"
"No," said the other with an absurd dignity, "you wrong me. I meant, is he jealous?"
"Jealous?" she retorted in bewilderment. "No, why should he be? Of what?"
Geoffrey Alison suddenly found this difficult to answer and whilst he hesitated, feeling justly hurt, the storm was on him with its utmost force.
"I wonder," she said once again, for Man flies to a tag in moments of emotion, "I wonder you dare come and see me. I trusted you with all my happiness—with everything; you swore you'd never fail me; and now——" She spread her arms in a pathetic gesture; then suddenly inadequate, a girl: "It really is too bad of you."
"Oh, come I say," he started. He had arrived full of shame and dread, realising from his newspaper that he had been tricked into a betrayal; but now that her onslaught was so tame—merely "too bad,"—he visibly regained his courage. "I think," he went on, almost aggrieved, "you might give me a chance of clearing myself. It's not my fault at all, it's that swine Blatchley. I dined with him three nights ago and utterly refused to say a word about it, but he tricked me somehow. I still don't see how the cad did it, but he must have because nobody else knew. I'm awfully sorry, Zoë——"
That roused her. "Don't call me that," she broke in fiercely. "Never call me that again. As though I didn't loathe the name and everything it stands for! You wouldn't understand. It's wrecked everything, spoilt my whole life."
"Oh, come I say," he repeated automatically in a half-dazed manner.
"I hate it," she said, working herself up; "hate the book, hate everything to do with it, hate you. I wish to goodness I had never met you; then this never would have happened."