“And you think it’s a definite break?” She perceived, as she spoke, that his brow had cleared.
“How should I know? Perhaps you can tell me.”
“I?” She fancied his face clouded again, but he did not move from his tranquil attitude.
“As I told you,” she went on, “Owen has worked himself up to imagining that for some mysterious reason you’ve influenced Sophy against him.”
Darrow still visibly wondered. “It must indeed be a mysterious reason! He knows how slightly I know Miss Viner. Why should he imagine anything so wildly improbable?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“But he must have hinted at some reason.”
“No: he admits he doesn’t know your reason. He simply says that Sophy’s manner to him has changed since she came back to Givre and that he’s seen you together several times—in the park, the spring-house, I don’t know where—talking alone in a way that seemed confidential—almost secret; and he draws the preposterous conclusion that you’ve used your influence to turn her against him.”
“My influence? What kind of influence?”
“He doesn’t say.”