'I thought I wanted to marry her then. It's a long time ago.'
'And why couldn't you?'
He controlled a movement of strong irritation. 'Why are you catechizing me? It's a matter that concerns another woman.'
'If you say it doesn't concern me, you're saying'—her lip trembled—'saying that you don't concern me.'
With more difficulty than the girl dreamed, he compelled himself to answer quietly—
'In those days—I—I was absolutely dependent on my father.'
'Why, you must have been thirty, Geoffrey.'
'What? Oh—thereabouts.'
'And everybody says you're so clever.'
'Well, everybody's mistaken.'