'I have been trying to explain to your wife,' he said at last, 'that I have been away so long that I could hardly hope you would remember the relations between us.'
Mark made some reply to this; he did not know what.
'At least,' Vincent continued calmly, 'I may congratulate you upon the success of your book. I should have done so when we met the other day if I had understood then that you were the author. Your modesty did not allow you to mention it, and so I discover it later.'
Mark said nothing, though his dry lips moved.
'When you met!' cried Mabel in wonder. 'Did you know Vincent was alive then, Mark? And you never told me!'
'He naturally did not think it would interest you, you see,' said Vincent.
'No,' said Mabel, turning to Mark, 'you couldn't know that Vincent had once been almost one of the family; I forgot that. If you had only thought of telling me!'
The two men were silent again, and Mabel felt hurt and disappointed at Vincent's want of cordiality. He seemed to take it for granted that he had been forgotten. He would thaw presently, and she did her best to bring this about by all the means in her power, in her anxiety that the man she respected should do justice to the man she loved.
That conversation was, as far as Mark was concerned, like the one described in 'Aurora Leigh'—
'Every common word
Seemed tangled with the thunder at one end,
And ready to pull down upon their heads
A terror out of sight.'