"I see."
Constance leaned back in her chair. She looked like one who is sitting alone, occupied with tranquil reflection. Dyce allowed a moment to elapse before he again spoke; he was smiling to himself.
"How strange it all is!" he at length resumed, as though starting from a reverie. "This past fortnight seems already as dim and vague to me as the recollection of something that happened long years ago. I never believed myself capable of such follies. Tell me frankly." He leaned towards Constance, gazing at her in an amused, confidential way. "Could you have imagined that I should ever lose my head like that, and run off into such vagaries?"
Constance also smiled, but very faintly. Her eyebrows rose, ever so little. Her lips just moved, but uttered no sound.
"You know me better than anyone else ever did or ever will," he went on. "It is quite possible that you know me better than I know myself. Did you ever foresee such a possibility?"
"I can't say that it astonished me," was the deliberate reply, without any ironic note.
"Well, I am glad of that," said Dyce, with a little sign of relief. "It's much better so. I like to think that you read me with so clear an eye. For years I have studied myself, and I thought I knew how I should act in any given circumstances; yet it was mere illusion. What I regret is that I hadn't talked more to you about such things; you would very likely have put me on my guard. I always felt your power of reading character, it seemed to me that I concealed nothing from you. We were always so frank with each other—yet not frank enough, after all."
"I'm afraid not," assented the listener, absently.
"Well, it's an experience; though, as I say, more like a bit of delirium than actual life. Happily, you know all about it; I shall never have to tell you the absurd story. But I mustn't forget that other thing which really did surprise and vex you—my bit of foolish plagiarism. I have so wanted to talk to you about it. You have read the whole book?"
"Very carefully."