She looked at him a moment. “What do you want more?”
“Didn’t HE,” the Colonel inquired, “want anything more? Or didn’t, for that matter, poor Charlotte herself?”
She kept her eyes on him; there was a manner in it that half answered. “They were thoroughly in love. She might have been his—” She checked herself; she even for a minute lost herself. “She might have been anything she liked—except his wife.”
“But she wasn’t,” said the Colonel very smokingly.
“She wasn’t,” Mrs. Assingham echoed.
The echo, not loud but deep, filled for a little the room. He seemed to listen to it die away; then he began again. “How are you sure?”
She waited before saying, but when she spoke it was definite. “There wasn’t time.”
He had a small laugh for her reason; he might have expected some other. “Does it take so much time?”
She herself, however, remained serious. “It takes more than they had.”
He was detached, but he wondered. “What was the matter with their time?” After which, as, remembering it all, living it over and piecing it together, she only considered, “You mean that you came in with your idea?” he demanded.