"You were totting up your virtues then?" he pursued.
"I can do that on my fingers. It was Wray's vagaries that puzzled me. I am on my way to him."
His cheery mood vanished.
"Don't go near him," he burst out. "He is a beast; I loathe him."
"He is my friend." (This with an accent on the last word.)
"I expected that. They were my friends once, but I never go there now."
"They?" I inquired. I had forgotten the report of Wray's marriage, five years before. It had taken place in Rome on the eve of my departure from England.
"He and his wife. You met her? No? She was the sweetest girl that ever stept."
"Was?" I exclaimed. "Is she dead?"
"Dead to us, to society, to happiness. She left her husband within the year."