He smiled a little smile of reminiscent tenderness.
"Yes, yes. I remember."
"I didn't understand, Steven."
"Well, well. There's no need to go back on that now. It's done,
Gwenda."
"Yes. And I did it. I wouldn't have done it if I'd known what it meant. I didn't think it would have been like this."
"Like what?"
Rowcliffe's smile that had been reminiscent was now vague and obscurely speculative.
"I ought to have let you go when you wanted to," she said.
Rowcliffe looked down at the table. She sat leaning sideways against it; one thin arm was stretched out on it. The hand gripped the paper weight that he had pushed away. It was this hand, so tense and yet so helpless, that he was looking at. He laid his own over it gently. Its grip slackened then. It lay lax under the sheltering hand.
"Don't worry about that, my dear," he said. "It's been all right——"