“No,” said Miss Arbuthnot, in a low voice; “it would not.”
“Then you own I was right?”
“Oh, don’t make me your judge!” she cried impatiently. “Right? I see no right from beginning to end. But what of that? What have I to do with it?”
He answered coolly, “Everything.”
She hesitated for a moment. Perhaps she was calling back her self-possession, which had been startled. At any rate, when she spoke again, it was more quietly.
“This is interesting. May I hear more?”
“I mean you to. I said that Claudia was jealous of you. That was because she discovered my secret. Helen, it has been madness, from beginning to end—our break-off, our fancying we had ceased to care, our taking up with others. Don’t let us play any longer. My step is taken, take yours, and let us be married next month.”
“You mean,” she said slowly, “I am to throw over—”
“Oh, that fellow!” he exclaimed. “You’re not engaged to him, you know very well, not seriously, and if you were, you care for me fifty times as well. Deny it if you can!”
“Oh!” she said, with a gasp, “you think so?”