After a few words touching this affair, Braine says, as though suddenly remembering the matter:
"I was sorry to disappoint you last night, dear—"
Helen interrupts him, raising her eyebrows, and saying, curiously:
"Disappoint me?"
"By not joining you as I promised."
"Oh!" in a calm, indifferent tone, as though she had quite forgotten the circumstance.
"I happened to remember at the last minute that Weldon was to leave on the early train for the north, and I had to see him without fail before he left, so I ran down to his hotel. We talked until three o'clock, and I knew you were so tired that you would be asleep by then."
She replies calmly:
"Oh yes, I was asleep by then. It was quite as well, I was very tired."
Her indifference is so apparent that it amounts to scant courtesy.