Susan did not see my point clearly. Indeed, the more I laboured it, the less clearly I saw it myself. Besides, if this was really and truly Lord Ruddington, my attempt at crediting him with superfine feelings was either hypothetical or ludicrous.
"I'm very sorry, Miss," said Susan from the depths of her immeasurable docility. And then we got through another half-hour of pretending to look at magazines, while we were cunningly looking at the creature who was fixedly looking at us.
When it became intolerable, I said to Susan:
"I'm determined not to move. One mustn't even seem to be beaten by such rudeness. But do, for goodness' sake, put it out of your head that it can possibly be Lord Ruddington. What would Lord Ruddington be doing, travelling second-class?"
"I suppose, Miss," answered Susan, so promptly that she must have already thought it out, "he's come after Me. And he thought we shouldn't guess it was him if he rode in the second-class."
I suddenly felt that I had had heaps more than enough of the whole sordid business. I had felt for an hour that Susan knew a little more than she cared to admit. Probably she was right, and this was indeed Lord Ruddington. If so, everything was plain. This coarse-grained young rake's desire of Susan's country freshness and innocence was something even more detestable than the familiar infatuation of some weedy young lordling with a dressy and exuberant and altogether outrageous chorus-girl in town. I felt as if a rosy veil of illusion had been drawn away from life, and it almost turned me faint and sick. The worst of the affair was that Susan, with her wholesome instincts, was not revolted as she ought to have been, even by that which she did not understand.
"Susan," I said abruptly, "I'm not at all satisfied. You keep talking about a dreadful feeling, which is all sheer nonsense. I feel perfectly certain you know something about that man down there that you haven't told me."
"The only thing, Miss----"
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
"I didn't think there was anything much in it, Miss."