'You think I don't recall it correctly?' she said very low.
'Not when you make—other people believe that I deserted you!' The gathering volume of his righteous wrath swept the cool precision out of his voice. 'It's a curious enough charge,' he said, 'when you stop to consider——' Again he checked himself, and, with a gesture of impatience, was for sweeping the whole thing out of his way, including that figure at the door.
But she stood there. 'Well, when we do just for five minutes out of ten years—when we do stop to consider——'
'We remember it was you who did the deserting. And since you had to rake the story up, you might have had the fairness to tell the facts.'
'You think "the facts" would have excused you?'
It was a new view. She left the door, and sat down in the nearest chair.
'No doubt you've forgotten the facts, since Lady John tells me you wouldn't remember my existence once a year, if the papers didn't——'
'Ah!' she interrupted, with a sorry little smile, 'you minded that!'
'I mind your giving false impressions,' he said with spirit. As she was about to speak he advanced upon her. 'Do you deny'—he bent over her, and told off those three words by striking one clenched fist into the palm of the other hand—'do you deny that you returned my letters unopened?'
'No,' she said.