“Yes?”
“What have you been doing all these years?”
“I—I’ve been keeping alive—”
“Dick,” suddenly broke out Jane, as if she had not been listening, “I have often thought you must have thought me a heartless wretch; but I’m not.”
“There is no use in going over the past,” he said. “What is done is done, and never can be undone. I can only say that I have never in the past had a friend to stick to me, or a woman to love me, or a father to care for me.”
“May it not have been your own fault, Dick? Think for a moment. I don’t want to reproach you, but you know how wild you were—you know that was one of the reasons we couldn’t get married. Oh, it wasn’t ‘my heartlessness,’ as you told me in your last letter but one. I have heart enough—at least I hope so,” said Jane, looking at Koma-ino as if for confirmation, “and I wouldn’t have done what I did if you’d been different. Never mind, Dick, cheer up!—buck up! as they used to say in the poor old Smart Set, till the respectable folk took the expression away from them. What’ve you been doing all these long years, Dick?”
“Oh, I’ve been in Australia.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Curse Australia!” suddenly broke out Leslie, digging his heel in the ground. “Don’t speak to me about it; let’s talk of something else.”
“Well, what are you doing here? I mean, what have you been doing all these years—playing the guitar, or what?”