"Then why do you keep away from her?" said Piers, with good-humoured directness. "Is it really necessary for you to live here? She would be much happier if you went back."
"I'm not sure of that."
"But I am, from what she says in her letters, and I should have thought that you, too, would prefer it to this life."
He glanced round the room. Olga looked vexed, and spoke with a note of irony.
"My tastes are unaccountable, I'm afraid. You, no doubt, find it difficult to understand them. So does my cousin Irene. You have heard that she is going to be married?"
Piers, surprised at her change of tone, regarded her fixedly, until she reddened and her eyes fell.
"Is the engagement announced, then?"
"I should think so; but I'm not much in the way of hearing fashionable gossip."
Still Piers regarded her; still her cheeks kept their colour, and her eyes refused to meet his.
"I see I have offended you," he said quietly. "I'm very sorry. Of course I went too far in speaking like that of the life you have chosen. I had no right——"