“Yes.”
“Why? Did you think I’d want to know?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry, you devil? You came down to torment me. You’d better go, d’ye hear.”
René could not move. He was fascinated by the suffering in the little creature, melted and weakened by his pity for her.
“You’d better go,” she repeated. “And tell her you left a poor girl hating you, and see how she’ll like that. Sorry! That’s what you say when you step on a fellow’s foot in a bus. Sorry! When you got a girl body and soul, and you throw her away like dirt.”
“I came back.”
“Yes. To tell me that. To tell me I was dirt, to throw me down for her to walk on so’s she shan’t get her feet wet.”
She changed her tone and asked quietly:
“You knew her before me?”