“I believe you’re angry with me,” she said. Yet all the while she was thinking: “I suppose there’ll be an inquest and a big fuss and all that. And the furniture and stuff will have to be sold.”
No answer.
“You are,” she repeated, and was surprised by her own persistence. After all, she didn’t care twopence whether he was angry with her or not. Only she would have been gratified if he were angry with her. It was something to come into a man’s life enough to make him angry. And it was rather an amusing pastime, this flirting with George Trant.
“Perhaps I am,” he said coldly.
“Why?” It would interest her to know why. At any rate she might as well know why.
“You’ve disappointed me.”
That was all. It satisfied her. He had evidently been building ideals around her. He had dreamed dreams in which she had been epic and splendid and magnificent. He had thought of her sufficiently for her to have the power of disappointing him. She was gratified. After all, she did not like him, so there was no reason why she should mind disappointing him. And he had paid her the subtle compliment of being disappointed with her.
She did not particularly want to know how she had disappointed him. Yet the conversation seemed incomplete without the question: “In what way?”
She could feel him turning round to face her.
“Various ways,” he said vaguely, but his tone seemed to invite her to pursue the subject. For that very reason she kept silent. It was not a matter of sufficient importance for her to ask the same question twice over. And if he did want her to repeat her question, that was all the more reason for her not doing so.