"Yes, I suppose that would always be the way, wouldn't it?—that whenever I found out, you were just going to tell me?"
If she had searched her mind for a way to strangle his headlong self-defence, she could not possibly have done it more effectually. There followed a horrible pause.
"You mean … that you do not believe me?"
"In the little while that I have known you, have you given me much reason to?"
"Can't you see that that is exactly the reason I wanted to tell you all the truth now?"
"Why did you wait till now? Weren't there chances to tell me this afternoon on my father's yacht? But—there's no use to speak of all this. It is enough that I know it now."
He was aware that her voice had lost that hard and polished lightness with which she had first struck at him; on this last sentence, he thought that it trembled a little; and in a flash, he saw the whole matter from her side of it, and for the moment ceased to think about himself.
He leaned his arms upon the green panel of the gate and looked down at her.
"Don't think that I blame you for not taking my word. Probably I couldn't expect it. We can't very well argue about that…. And of course I have known all along—how you would feel about me, when you found out what I came here to do. I was ready for that—ready for you to be angry. But I don't seem to have taken it in that you would be … hurt. That makes it a good deal worse."
She made no reply. She had lowered her heavy-fringed eyes; her slim, gloved hands were busily furling and unfurling her white parasol.