“Seen Hen before!” said Jacky. “Who hasn’t seen Hen? He’s serving you like me, my dear. These boys! You wait—Still we love ’em.”
“Are you now satisfied?” Henry asked.
Margaret began to grow frightened. “I don’t know what it is all about,” she said. “Let’s come in.”
But he thought she was acting. He thought he was trapped. He saw his whole life crumbling. “Don’t you indeed?” he said bitingly. “I do. Allow me to congratulate you on the success of your plan.”
“This is Helen’s plan, not mine.”
“I now understand your interest in the Basts. Very well thought out. I am amused at your caution, Margaret. You are quite right—it was necessary. I am a man, and have lived a man’s past. I have the honour to release you from your engagement.”
Still she could not understand. She knew of life’s seamy side as a theory; she could not grasp it as a fact. More words from Jacky were necessary—words unequivocal, undenied.
“So that—” burst from her, and she went indoors. She stopped herself from saying more.
“So what?” asked Colonel Fussell, who was getting ready to start in the hall.
“We were saying—Henry and I were just having the fiercest argument, my point being—” Seizing his fur coat from a footman, she offered to help him on. He protested, and there was a playful little scene.