"You will forgive me, Irene? I see now that I ought to have told you about it yesterday."
"Better as it was, perhaps, so far as I am concerned. But he—I'm sorry——"
"He behaved well, don't you think?"
"Yes," replied Irene thoughtfully, slowly, "he behaved well."
They moved apart, and Irene laid her hand on a book, but did not sit down.
"How old is he?" she asked of a sudden.
"Six-and-twenty."
"One would take him for more. But of course his ways of thinking show how young he is." She fluttered the pages of her book, and smiled. "It will be interesting to see him in another five years."
That was all. Neither mentioned Otway's name again during the two more days they spent together.
But Irene's mind was busy with the contrast between him and Arnold Jacks. She pursued this track of thought whithersoever it led her, believing it a wholesome exercise in her present mood. Her choice was made, and irrevocable; reason bade her justify it by every means that offered. And she persuaded herself that nothing better could have happened, at such a juncture, than this suggestion of an alternative so widely different.