“Then why,” Owen demanded in reasonable accents, “couldn’t he have proposed to you himself without waiting for you to be engaged to me?”
“He thought he couldn’t ask me to go to Canada—and he’s badly off—and then, when you came, he—he thought it was you I cared about.”
“I see,” said Quentillian dryly.
“I don’t think I knew, exactly, that I still cared for him, and I was sure he hadn’t meant anything, and it—it was really all over—only then—Flora’s music, somehow—and he asked me what it was—and I cried. Owen, won’t you forgive me? Surely it’s better than if I’d tried to go on with it?”
“Of course it is.”
They looked at one another rather helplessly.
“Val, if I can do anything to help you, of course I will. What are you going to do?”
“I can’t think,” said Valeria faintly.
“When does Cuscaden sail?”
“Next week.”