There was something in the tone of that last remark of his which stung her to the retort:
“So you think it is possible for me to go to the piano and play a Bach concerto while you sit coolly down to wonder why I have come?”
“Well,” he said, suddenly and with emphasis, “why have you come?”
“You said if I was ever over in the States I was to come and see you. I naturally expected that the invitation would extend to when you returned to England.”
“Did it not occur to you,” he remarked slowly, “that when I returned from the States I should have sent you my address if I had desired to see you?”
“Of course,” she interposed neatly, “as it happens, I know that you never went to America at all.”
He did not seem greatly ruffled by this.
“Then,” he continued, “you know that I told you a lie. And you may have the satisfaction—if it is a satisfaction—of knowing also that you are the only person in the whole world who has ever made me do that. That honour,” he added bitterly, “you share with no one: it is yours entirely.”
She felt: Now we are getting to it.
“I don’t know why it should have been so necessary for you to tell me a lie,” she said.