"Something else: after to-night don't talk to me about her. I don't want to hear; it's not pleasant to me. If you want to prove your affection, prove it by that! While she's here I can't see you; when she's gone, let us talk as if she had never been!"
The aspect of the man showed of what a tremendous strain this affected calmness was the outcome. Indeed, the deliberateness of the words, even more than the words themselves, hushed her into a conviction of his sincerity, which was disquieting because she found it so inexplicable. She smoothed the folds of her dress, casting at him, from time to time, glances full of wistfulness and pity; and at last she said, in the voice of a person who resigns herself to bewilderment:
"Well, of course I'll do as you wish. But you have both very queer notions of what is right, that's certain; help seems equally repugnant to the pair of you."
"Why do you say that?" inquired Kincaid. "What help has Miss Brettan declined?"
"She was reluctant to refer anybody to me, I thought, when I mentioned the matter to-day. I suppose that was another instance of delicacy over my head."
"The reference? She won't make use of it?"
"She seemed very doubtful of doing so. I said: 'Without any reference, what on earth will become of you?' And she said, 'Yes, she understood, but——' But something; I forget exactly what it was now."
"But that's insane!" he said imperatively.
"She'll be helpless without it. She has been your companion, and you have had no fault to find with her; you can conscientiously say so."
He rose, and shook his coat clear of the ash that had fallen in a lump from the cigar.