"It wouldn't have done any good. I did what you wanted done, you know. I thought that was enough."
"It was enough," echoed Catherine, with a quick return of grace. She looked into the fire. "I don't want to be hard upon the poor thing, Duncan! I know you think we women always are, upon each other. But to have come back married—at his age—to even the nicest woman in the world! It would have been madness ... ruination ... Duncan, T'm going to say something else that may shock you."
"Say away," said I.
Her voice had fallen. She was looking at me very narrowly, as if to measure the effect of her unspoken words.
"I am not so very sure about marriage," she went on, "at any age! Don't misunderstand me ... I was very happy ... but I for one could never marry again ... and I am not sure that I ever want to see Bob...."
Catherine had spoken very gently, looking once more in the fire; when she ceased there was a space of utter silence in the little room. Then her eyes came back furtively to mine; and presently they were twinkling with their old staid merriment.
"But to be Number Three!" she said again. "My poor old Bob!"
And she smiled upon me, tenderly, from the depths of her alter-egoism.
"Well," I said, "he never will be."
"God forbid!" cried Catherine.