“I hate explaining,” he said, “and really you can understand for yourself. But if you insist on it, it’s this. Dennis asked me point-blank why Aunt Hester never came to Stanier. Well, I couldn’t tell him about her impertinence with regard to poor Pamela, her imagining that I had an intrigue with her.... Good Lord, didn’t the sequel exculpate me? An edifying incident, wasn’t it?”
“You know what I think about that,” said she.
“Yes: I remember your saying you wished I was in love with Pamela. And I kept telling Pamela that I was in love with you. But she rushed on disaster. Odd—I was thinking only this afternoon how long it was since I had given a thought to Pamela, and now she comes up in connection with Aunt Hester. Well, I couldn’t tell Dennis about that. You would have been very much shocked with me if I had. I couldn’t tell him that the woman was in love with me, and his mother wished I was in love with her. Such a dreadful thing to tell a young boy at the most impressionable age! You agree?”
“You distort it all,” she said. “But I agree.”
“Oh, distortion!” he said. “Everyone else’s point of view is distorted when viewed from one’s own. We all have our own individual perspective, which shews everybody else’s out of drawing. But, as you agree, I had to give some other reason. I gave one that naturally occurred to me, namely, that you resented and found unforgivable something poor Aunt Hester had done. I was pleased when I thought of that.”
“You always think of everything,” she said.
“Yes, darling, I am pretty thorough. And you see why I was pleased, don’t you?”
“Perfectly well. You wanted to give Dennis a new impression of me, as being hard and unforgiving, and of yourself as kind.”
Colin softly clapped his hands.
“Ah! I knew you really understood,” he said. “I knew you didn’t need any explanations. But why not have said so at first? You shewed you knew at dinner.”