Nellie waited to hear the qualification. She liked the fact that there was a qualification, though at present she did not know what it was. As nothing further came, she spoke again, quite in the old style.
“Oh, it’s so rude to say ‘but,’ and then not go on,” she said.
Peter jerked back his head.
“Let me be polite, then,” he said. “One can always observe the small decencies of life. What I nearly said was: ‘But I’m not in love with her.’ I stopped myself, Nellie, if you want to know, because it seemed to me very vividly that it wasn’t your business.”
There was an illumination cast on to her face from the street lamps from below. To his intense surprise he saw that her eyes, wide and unfocused, grew suddenly dim.
“That’s just what I, too, am beginning to realize,” she said. “Whatever you do now is none of my business. I’ve got a separate establishment. I’m bound to say that you have quite realized that. You haven’t asked me a single question about what goes on in mine. It doesn’t concern you any more; therefore, you don’t care. I shall learn to respect your privacy, too, Peter. Another snub or so will teach me.”
“That’s nonsense!” he said quickly.
“It isn’t nonsense. You treat me like a stranger because I happen to be marrying someone else. If you had been in love with me——”
“We’ve had that already,” said Peter.