Crewe looked up and down, smiled in a vacant way, and appeared very uncomfortable.
‘May I guess the truth?’ said his playful companion.
‘No, I’ll tell you. I wanted to marry her, and did my best to get her to promise.’
‘I thought so!’ She paused on the note of arch satisfaction, and mused. ‘How nice of you to confess!—And that’s all past and forgotten, is it?’
Never man more unlike himself than the bold advertising-agent in this colloquy. He was subdued and shy; his usual racy and virile talk had given place to an insipid mildness. He seemed bent on showing that the graces of polite society were not so strange to him as one might suppose. But under Mrs. Damerel’s interrogation a restiveness began to appear in him, and at length he answered in his natural blunt voice:
‘Yes, it’s all over—and for a good reason.’
The lady’s curiosity was still more provoked.
‘No,’ she exclaimed laughingly, ‘I am not going to ask the reason. That would be presuming too far on friendship.’
Crewe fixed his eyes on a corner of the room, and seemed to look there for a solution of some difficulty. When the silence had lasted more than a minute, he began to speak slowly and awkwardly.
‘I’ve half a mind to—in fact, I’ve been thinking that you ought to know.’