‘My dear child,’ replied Gaston leisurely, leaning up against the mantelpiece, ‘if you had read Balzac you would discover that he says, “Life would be intolerable without a certain amount of forgetting.” I must say,’ smiling, ‘I agree with the novelist.’
Kitty looked at him as he stood there cool and complacent, and threw herself back into the chair angrily.
‘Just the same,’ she muttered restlessly, ‘just the same.’
‘Of course,’ replied Vandeloup, raising his eyebrows in surprise. ‘You have only been away from me six weeks, and it takes longer than that to alter any one. By the way,’ he went on smoothly, ‘how have you been all this time? I have no doubt your tour has been as adventurous as that of Gil Bias.’
‘No, it has not,’ replied Kitty, clenching her hands. ‘You never cared what became of me, and had not Mr Wopples met me in the street on that fearful night, God knows where I would have been now.’
‘I can tell you,’ said Gaston, coolly, taking a seat. ‘With me. You would have soon got tired of the poverty of the streets, and come back to your cage.’
‘My cage, indeed!’ she echoed, bitterly, tapping the ground with her foot. ‘Yes, a cage, though it was a gilded one.’
‘How Biblical you are getting,’ said the young man, ironically; ‘but kindly stop speaking in parables, and tell me what position we are to occupy to each other. As formerly?’
‘My God, no!’ she flashed out suddenly.
‘So much the better,’ he answered, bowing. ‘We will obliterate the last year from our memories, and I will meet you to-night for the first time since you left Ballarat. Of course,’ he went on, rather anxiously, ‘you have told Madame nothing?’