"You find me very unhappy," said she, drying her eyes (gently, so as not to make them unbecomingly red). "Why have you never been to see me?"
This, turning on him abruptly, and with a degree of displeasure that ought to have raised his highest hopes.
"I've been away," he stammered, "in the North on business. I—I didn't know you wanted me."
"Oh, it's not that!" she answered pettishly. "Of course, one can't expect people to put off business, or pleasure, or anything else for the sake of their friends. What's the use of friends? What's the use of caring for anything or anybody? I wish I didn't. I shouldn't be so upset now!"
In his entire participation of her sorrow, he quite lost his own embarrassment.
"Can I do anything?" he exclaimed. "There's the will, you know, even if there isn't the power."
"Nothing, that I can see," she answered drearily. "Here's a letter from Sir Henry Hallaton. They're completely ruined, he tells me; a regular smash! What is to become of them? I'm so wretched, particularly about Helen."
She put her handkerchief to her face once more, but watched her listener narrowly, nevertheless. It did not escape her that his countenance changed and fell, as if he had been stung.
He recovered himself bravely, though.
"That is distressing enough," said he, "and sounds a bad business, no doubt. Still, it is only a question of money, I suppose. It might have been worse."