“Only for a minute or two. After all, what is there to say but that the whole affair must be forgotten, and never again mentioned by a soul. I want so to make you understand that it is to us nothing at all, that it is ridiculous to suppose that it can affect our thoughts of him. It was the sort of thing that might happen to any one after such an illness.”
Sigrid looked up at him. There was the same depth of disappointment in her expression as there had been in Cecil’s.
“You take that view of it,” she said slowly. “Somehow I had hoped you would have been able to find the true explanation.”
“If there were any other you surely know that I would seek for it with all my might,” said Roy. “But I do not see how any other explanation can possibly exist.”
She sighed.
“You are disappointed,” he said. “You thought I should have taken the view that Carlo Donati takes. I only wish I could. But, you see, my nature is more prosaic. I can’t make myself believe a thing when all the evidences are against it.”
“I am not blaming you,” said Sigrid. “It is quite natural, and of course most employers would have taken a far harder view of the matter, and turned Frithiof off at a moment’s notice. You and Mr. Boniface have been very kind.”
“Don’t speak like that,” he exclaimed. “How can you speak of kindness as between us? You know that Frithiof is like a brother to me.”
“No,” she said; “you are mistaken. I know that you are fond of him; but, if he were like a brother to you, then you would understand him; you would trust him through everything as I do.”
Perhaps she was unreasonable. But then she was very unhappy and very much agitated; and women are not always reasonable, or men either, for that matter.