‘It is a long time since we met, Miss Lacy,’ he remarked presently, but in so low a voice that had my hearing not been sharpened by anger at his daring to address me, I do not think I should have caught the words.
‘Do you think so?’ I answered carelessly, for I felt that I must say something.
‘How can you ask? Have the last five years passed so pleasantly as to leave no evidence of the flight of time?’
‘Considering,’ I replied, panting with indignation at what appeared to me such thorough indifference to my feelings, ‘considering, Mr Armytage, that during the years you speak of I have lost both my dear parents, I should think you might have spared me the allusion.’
‘Forgive me. I did not mean to wound you. But if the loss of your parents is the only loss you have to regret during those five years, you are happier than some, Miss Lacy. Death is natural, but there are griefs (the loss of love and hope, for instance) almost too unnatural to be borne.’
How dared he, how dared he—he who had treated me in so cruel and unnatural a manner himself, who had but just plighted his faith afresh to my friend—quietly stand there, looking me in the face with his dark, searching eyes, and taunt me with the barrenness of the life which he had made sterile? Much as I had loved him—much as I feared I loved him still—I could have stood up at that moment and denounced him to them all as a traitor and a coward. But I thought of Amy, dear little innocent, confiding Amy, and I was silent.
‘I have not lost them,’ I answered him, quietly. ‘Therefore I cannot sympathise with your allusion. The death of my dear parents was more than sufficient trouble for me; all else of solace that this world can give me is mine.’
‘Do you mean to tell me—’ he commenced quickly.
‘I mean to tell nothing,’ I replied in the same cold tones. ‘I am not in the habit of discussing my private affairs with strangers. Had you not better go to Amy? I see that she is sitting out this dance.’
Upon which he gravely inclined his head in acquiescence, and left me to myself.