But the lady, determined then or never to learn the truth, cocked an eye at her. “I am not, nor was he.”
At that, Leilah felt the girdle of ice sending its shivers through her. The plan she had made must, she saw, be foregone. If Verplank did not know why she had separated from him, never would he leave Paris until he did. But what must he have thought, she agonisedly reflected, and what must he think!
Violet, who had been watching her, said:
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Leilah taking up her fork again, tried for countenance sake, to affect to eat. The effort was beyond her. She put it down.
“I can’t,” she at last replied.
Violet, her brilliant eye still cocked, almost winked.
“Yes, you said that before. But you see, don’t you know, that whether you can or cannot tell me, you will have to tell him and, in the circumstances, would it not be best to have me do it for you? To be sure, if you had taken my advice and omitted to marry Barouffski, I would say, have it out with him yourself. But your marriage does not seem to have simplified matters, which, so far as I can make out, are now pretty thoroughly mixed.”
The lady spoke better than she knew. Matters were complicated though how profoundly she had no idea, nor was Leilah aware that the situation, already tortuous, was to become even more intricately labyrinthine.
“Of course,” Violet, in her bell-like voice, threw out, “after running away, getting a divorce and marrying another man, I can fancy that you don’t much want to see him. But, really, you owe it to yourself to give the reason, particularly as it is he who is to blame.”