“Yes, I called upon her,” he replied, wondering how she had come to know it. (She had merely guessed it.)
“That would give her hope.”
“Hope?”
“Hope. And it was this hope that induced her to accept Mrs. Lampson’s invitation, although she must have known that Mrs. Lampson’s brother was not to be of the party. I have often wondered if it was you or Lord Fotheringay who asked Mrs. Lampson to invite her?”
“It was I,” said Edmund.
Her eyes brightened—so far as it was possible for them to brighten.
“I wonder if she came to know that,” said Helen musingly. “It would be something of a pity if she did not know it.”
“For that matter, nearly everything that happens is a pity,” said he.
“Not everything,” said she. “But it is certainly a pity that the person who had the bad taste to stab poor Lord Fotheringay did not postpone his crime for at least one day. You would in that case have had a chance of returning by the side of Beatrice Avon instead of by the side of some one else.”
“Who is infinitely cleverer,” said Edmund.