“From whom did you gather there had been a misunderstanding?”
“I believe it was Helen who——”
“Oh, I see.”
He emboldened himself to start a cross-examination of her.
“May I ask if there ever was a misunderstanding?” he said.
Catherine lied, splendidly, regally, with magnificent disdain. It was clearly an opportunity to demonstrate (to herself chiefly) how completely the tables had been turned.
“I’m sure I don’t know what the misunderstanding you’ve been talking about is or was supposed to be. But so far as I am aware there never was such a thing.”
He tried to grasp all the significations of this. Then he resumed the enquiry.
“Why have you been asking me about these things?”
“Merely curiosity,” she replied, with an undercurrent of implication which said: “Do you suppose for one moment that my reasons could have been any other than those of mere curiosity?”