"He is very different, I suppose?" He flushes a dark crimson as he puts this question.
"Altogether—utterly! At least, I can tell myself, I am to him something more than a necessary evil, a thing forced upon him by circumstances. To you I was only that, and worse. There were moments when I believe you hated me."
"We need not discuss that now," says Dare coldly. "Where is Gower?"
"I don't know; at least, I am not sure. What do you want with him? There is no use in quarreling with him," she says, nervously.
"Why should I quarrel with any man because a woman chooses to prefer him to me? That is her affair altogether."
He walks away from her, and she, moving into the deep embrasure of the large bow window, stands staring blankly upon the sunlit landscape without.
But presently he returns and, standing beside her, gazes out, too, upon the flowers that are bowing and simpering as the light wind dances over them.
"I am going away this evening," he says, at length, very gently. "It is uncertain when I shall return. Good-by."
He holds out his hand, awkwardly enough, and even when, after a momentary hesitation, she lays hers in it, hardly presses it. Yet still, though he has paid his adieux, he lingers there, and loiters aimlessly, as if he finds a difficulty in putting an end to the miserable tete-a-tete.
"You were wrong just now," he says, somewhat abruptly, not looking at her; "there was never one second in my life when I hated you; you need not have said that."