But Jack Dalhousie's friend only answered, in the same detached way:
"It's unpardonable, my detaining you this way. I'd no idea ... May I show you the way up--"
"No--no! Please wait!..."
He waited, silent. Carlisle, having paused long enough to take firm hold of her consciousness of vast superiorities, resumed more strongly:
"Perhaps I ought to explain why I--thought that. I was told that the whole thing had fallen through, when a--a wealthy subscriber stepped in and secretly gave a very large amount--had bought the building for you. So I--I naturally thought--"
"It was absolutely natural. In fact, it's quite true.... Shall we go to the meeting now?"
But no, something in her required that he must state in plain words the fact that would justify her accusation, alleged by his eyes to be so unjust: namely, that it was (practically) a member of her family who had done this splendid thing for him. Yet she went rather further than she had intended when she said, glancing away over the queer dusky court:
"I will tell you. Some one gave us to understand--not he himself, of course,--that it was a friend of ours who had done this ... Mr. Hugo Canning."
He made no answer.
An uncontrollable desire carried the girl yet further. She said, in a weakening voice: