“Pray don’t think I telegraphed to him to come. It was the last thing I desired.”
“I should have imagined so,” said Mrs Martyn dryly.
Wareham bit his lip.
“One must keep a promise.”
“Must one?”
“You will allow that the manner in which Miss Dalrymple broke off her engagement was maddening for my friend? Not an interview, not a word, only complete annihilation of all that had passed. Of course, from her own point of view, she may have been justified. I say nothing of blame.”
Mrs Martyn smiled. Wareham had seldom found his own temper so tried as in this interview. He felt as if her great hat had an irritating personality, and crushed him.
“You may know, or you may not know, that the blow to him was so serious that it brought me back from India.”
“Isn’t there such a thing as a ricochet?” asked Mrs Blanche innocently, so innocently that the innocence tickled him.
“I am afraid there is,” he admitted with candour. “Shall I go on?”