'Since you insist on knowing the truth,' answered Lushington, yielding to what was very like necessity, 'I think you are very much changed since I saw you last. You do not seem to me the same person.'
For a moment Margaret looked at him with something like wonder, and her lips parted, though she said nothing. Then they met again and shut very tight, while her brown eyes darkened till they looked almost black; she turned a shade paler, too, and there was something almost tragic in her face.
'I'm sorry,' Lushington said, watching her, 'but you made me tell you.'
'Yes,' she answered slowly. 'I made you tell me, and I'm glad I did.
So I have changed as much as that, have I? In two years!'
She folded her hands on the little shelf of the empty music desk, bent far forwards and looked down between the polished wooden bars at the strings below, as if she were suddenly interested in the mechanism of the piano.
Lushington turned his eyes to the darkening windows, and both sat thus in silence for some time.
'Yes,' she repeated at last, 'I'm glad I made you tell me. It explains everything very well.'
Still Lushington said nothing, and she was still examining the strings. Her right hand stole to the keys, and she pressed down one note so gently that it did not strike; she watched the little hammer that rose till it touched the string and then fell back into its place.
'You said I should change—I remember your words.' Her voice was quiet and thoughtful, whatever she felt. 'I suppose there is something about me now that grates on your nerves.'
There was no resentment in her tone, nor the least intonation of sarcasm. But Lushington said nothing; he was thinking of the time when he had thought her an ideal of refined girlhood, and had believed in his heart that she could never stand the life of the stage, and would surely give it up in sheer disgust, no matter how successful she might be. Yet now, she did not even seem offended by what he had told her. So much the better, he thought; for he was far too truthful to take back one word in order to make peace, even if she burst into tears. Possibly, of the two, his reflections were sadder than hers just then, but she interrupted them with a question.