"I don't know. I hoped you could—up to a point," said Roy, looking away to the snows and remembering, suddenly, that was where he ought to be now—with Lance—always Lance: no other thought or presence seemed vital to him, these days. Yet Rose remained beautiful and desirable—and clearly she loved him.
"It doesn't make things easier, you know," she was saying, in her cool, low voice, "to feel you are patently regretting events that, unhappily, did hurt—him; but also—gave me to you...."
Her beauty, her evident pain, penetrated the settled misery that enveloped him like an atmosphere.
"Darling—forgive me!" He reached out, pulling her hands apart, and his fingers closed hard on hers. "I'm only trying—clumsily—to understand...."
"And goodness knows I'm willing to help you," she sighed, returning his pressure. "But—I'm afraid the little I can say for myself won't do much to regild my halo—if there's any of it left! I gather you aren't very well up in women, or girls, Roy?"
"No—I'm not. Perhaps it makes me seem to you a bit of a fool?"
"Quite the reverse. It's all along been a part of your charm."
"My—charm?"
There was more of tenderness than amusement in her low laugh. "Precisely! If you didn't possess—some magnetic quality, could I have been drawn away from a man—like Lance, when I'd nearly made up my mind—to face the music."
For answer, he kissed her captured hand.