He did not at once answer; this bore directly on his stifled questionings, and answered them.
"Was anything particular in your mind?" he asked at length.
"No—I mean yes. I can't lie to any purpose, Jim; it's no good my trying. Yes, what was partly in my mind was a disagreement I had with Jack some ten days ago. We patched it up quite beautifully, and agreed that nothing was worth bothering about. I acquiesced, though I should personally have preferred to have it out. At least I am sure of this, that if one differs fundamentally from any one, it is no use arguing, or, as he says, bothering. And fundamentally Jack and I are very different."
She paused a moment and glanced suddenly at him.
"And that is why we get on so excellently," she added, with just a suspicion of hurry in her words.
Jim longed to applaud her quickness; it had been excellently done. But the most elementary courtesy forbade him to call attention to it. "Asides" are conventionally observed at other places besides the theatres.
"I am glad of that," he said in a perfectly even voice.
This was a turning of the tables; his conventionality was as obvious as hers; she silently noticed it and also passed on.
"Yes, that little patch-up with Jack was in my mind," she said; "but then, as I told you, we have privately settled to have no storms. No, the storm which I mean will be a bigger storm than that. On that subject Jack and I are quite agreed. I mean a national storm, a general upheaval. My goodness! some high towers and steeples will be smashed. And here we all go, meantime, dancing in the middle of the thunder-clouds, with the lightning, so to speak, playing about us."