“Yes,” agreed Cara. “He was unlucky in his mother.” After a pause she went on: “And he was unlucky in the woman he loved. He wasn’t at all well-off in those days, and she threw him over—broke off the engagement and married a very wealthy man instead.”
Ann felt her heart contract.
“I suppose that’s what makes him so bitter, then,” she said in a low voice. “Probably—he still cares for her.”
“No.” Cara shook her head. “Eliot Coventry isn’t the sort of man to go on caring for a woman who’d proved herself unworthy. I think—I think he’d just wipe her clean out of his life.”
“It would be what she deserved,” asserted Ann rather fiercely.
“Yes, I suppose it would. But one can feel a little sorry for her. She spoilt her own life, too.”
“Did you know her, then?”
“Yes, I knew her. I think the only excuse to be made for her is that she was very young when it all happened.”
“I’m young,” said Ann grimly, “but I hope I wouldn’t be as mean as that.”
“You?” Cara’s eyes rested with a wistful kind of tenderness on the flushed face against the pillows. “But, my dear, there’s a world of difference between you and the girl Eliot Coventry was in love with.”