He made a gesture of impatience. “Do you understand nothing of love?” he cried.
She pressed her lips together and remained still and silent, dark against the casement window.
There came a sound of tapping from the room above. Three taps and again three taps.
Lady Harman made a little gesture as though she would put this sound aside.
“Love,” she said at last. “It comes to some people. It happens. It happens to young people.... But when one is married——”
Her voice fell almost to a whisper. “One must not think of it,” she said. “One must think of one’s husband and one’s duty. Life cannot begin again, Mr. Brumley.”
The taps were repeated, a little more urgently.
“That is my husband,” she said.
She hesitated through a little pause. “Mr. Brumley,” she said, “I want friendship so badly, I want some one to be my friend. I don’t want to think of things—disturbing things—things I have lost—things that are spoilt. That—that which you spoke of; what has it to do with me?”
She interrupted him as he was about to speak.