'I? ... What had I to do with it, Alice?'
There was something in his voice, a certain dull concentration, which had the singular effect of checking her sobs almost instantaneously, although her breast heaved convulsively at short intervals, like the swell that follows a storm at sea, long after the rage has subsided.
She touched her eyes prettily with a diminutive handkerchief, and made an effort to recover her serenity, smoothing a wrinkle out of the front of her dress.
'Well,' she sighed, 'I suppose you had as much influence over me as anybody. And ... and you never liked him, Theo. I could see that, and lately the recollection of it has come back to me more vividly.'
'You forget that I was in China at the time of your engagement. My influence could not have been very effective at such a range—even if I had taken it upon myself to exert it, which would have been an unwarrantable liberty.'
'I was so young,' she pleaded, 'and so inexperienced.'
'Twenty-two,' he observed reflectively; 'and you had your choice, I suppose, of all the best men in London.'
In some vague way Mrs. Huston's eyes conveyed a contradiction to this statement, although her lips never moved. A man less dense than this war-correspondent appeared to be would have understood readily enough what that glance really signified.
'I hope,' he continued imperturbably, 'that this misunderstanding is only temporary...'
She laughed bitterly, and examined the texture of her lace handkerchief with a gracefully impatient poise of the head.