“There's nothing to explain.”
He looked away. He realised that he could not explain the thing even to himself.
“Well, then, I don't want her to know that I thought of leaving,” he supplemented. “She wouldn't understand.”
“No?”
“She's so open and above-board about everything,” he explained nervously.
“It has seemed to me of late, Frederic, that you and Lydia are not quite so—what shall I say?—so enamoured of each other. What has happened?” she inquired so innocently, so naïvely, that he looked at her in astonishment. She was watching him narrowly. “I am sure you fairly live at her house. You are there nearly every day, and yet—well, I can feel rather than see the change in both of you. I hope———”
“I've been behaving like an infernal sneak, Yvonne!” cried he, conscience-stricken. “She's the finest, noblest girl in all this world, and I've been treating her shamefully.”
“Dear me! In what way, may I inquire?”
“Why, we used to—oh, but why go into all that? It would only amuse you. You'd laugh at us for silly fools. But I can't help saying this much: she doesn't deserve to be treated as I'm treating her now, Yvonne. It's hurting her dreadfully, and——”
“What have you been doing that she should be so dreadfully afflicted?” she cried ironically.