“You tell me—you can tell me—”
“The truth. Isn’t that always desirable? Besides, after all, have I said anything that should affront you? That I liked him. That was my remark.”
There was a pause.
“It implied that he liked you,” said Claudia, more calmly, though still choking.
“Oh, not at all. Does the one thing invariably imply the other?”
It might have been that there was—it seemed so to Claudia—a touch of mockery in the question.
“If not—” she began hastily, and stopped.
“If not, you think I was a fool? Well—perhaps. We were engaged, at any rate.”
“Oh!” cried the girl, stopping short. This was more than she had dreamed of.
“You did not know it? But I imagine you are prepared to hear of such episodes?” Is any woman prepared? Claudia bit her lip to keep back the answer she would have liked to fling at her tormentor, and Miss Arbuthnot went on—