"Even when I had told her that I had had no status—that I had never stood anywhere, in any sense she meant," said Mrs. Vervain, slowly—"even then she wasn't satisfied, it seems."
He uttered an uneasy exclamation. "She didn't believe you, you mean?"
"I mean that she did believe me: too thoroughly."
"Well, then—in God's name, what did she want?"
"Something more—those were the words she used."
"Something more? Between—between you and me? Is it a conundrum?" He laughed awkwardly.
"Girls are not what they were in my day; they are no longer forbidden to contemplate the relation of the sexes."
"So it seems!" he commented. "But since, in this case, there wasn't any—" he broke off, catching the dawn of a revelation in her gaze.
"That's just it. The unpardonable offence has been—in our not offending."
He flung himself down despairingly. "I give it up!—What did you tell her?" he burst out with sudden crudeness.