“Not his ghost—oh, no!” she murmured. “He is not dead—I am sure he is not dead!”
The Philosopher twisted himself round in his chair with a movement of irritation.
“How can you be sure?” he demanded. “You go by sentiment as usual! All wrong! Facts are the only props to lean on. When the War Office declares a man is ‘missing’ in this deplorable war, facts plainly point out the evidence that he is dead. You don’t want to believe it of course—your ‘sentiment’ refuses to believe it; but sentiment is a false guide—especially for women. It leads them into a morass of mistaken ideals and—and—er—wasted affection.”
“Yes,” she said, simply. “I am very wrong, I know—and you are—you must be—always right.”
His eyelids twitched with a quiver of irritation.
“Is that sarcastic?” he asked.
She started.
“Sarcastic? Oh, no! Did it seem so? I’m sorry!”
“You need not be sorry,” he said equably. “It is only your usual way of leaving facts for fiction. You are not ‘very wrong’—you are merely sentimental; and I am not, nor am I bound to be, ‘always right’—I am only endowed with a little common sense. And my common sense protests against your posing as a sort of war widow.”
He had scarcely said this when he would have given a great deal not to have said it. Her glance swept over him with an expression of regret, pain, anger and pity all commingled in one bright flash. She moved away from him and resumed her seat, bending her head anew over her embroidery to hide the tears that despite her efforts had sprung to her eyes at the rough touch he had laid on a smarting wound. Annoyed with himself—he nevertheless went on in the track suggested by his evil demon—