She shook her head seriously.
“I am sorry to hear you admit it. From my knowledge of you, I should have thought that, realising that you would at least have avoided her.”
“I am not doing her any harm,” he said.
“How can you be sure of that? Two years ago I should have felt confident that you couldn’t. I am not so positive now.”
“You mean she cares less for her husband than she did?”
The eager light in his eyes as he put the question troubled her. It was not consistent with her opinion of Dare that he should behave other than strictly honourably towards any woman.
“I don’t think you ought to have asked that,” she returned. He changed colour.
“No,” he said; “perhaps not. In any case, there wasn’t any need. It’s fairly obvious.”
“Leave her alone,” she counselled.
“Look here!” He took a step nearer to her, and spoke quickly and with a kind of repressed excitement that conveyed more than his actual words how deeply he was moved. “Don’t start getting a lot of false ideas into your head. I’m not playing the despicable game you think I’m after. I’m not amusing myself. Amusing myself! God! there isn’t much amusement in it. I’m leaving on Saturday,—I’ve made up my mind to that. But I’m going to see as much of her as I can in the interval. It’s the last time... I sha’n’t come back, unless I can feel perfectly sure of myself. But I’m going to leave her with the knowledge that I am her friend,—to be counted on if she needs me. I only ask to serve her. If she doesn’t want my service, I will stand outside her life altogether.”