"So much the better; you will be cured now."
She had spoken only lightly, not meaning to be unkind or unfeeling; but she saw what she had done, by his quivering lip. Leaning across him as he stood, under cover of showing him something on the table, she spoke in a deep, earnest tone.
"Henry, you know it could never be. Better that you should see the truth now, than go on in this dream of folly. Stay away for a short while if you will, and overget it; and then we will be fast friends as before."
"And this is to be the final ending?"
She stole a glance round at him, his voice had so strange a sound in it. Every trace of colour had faded from his face.
"Yes; it is the only possible ending. If you get on well and become somebody grand, you and I can be as brother and sister in after life."
She moved away as she spoke. It may be that she saw further trifling would not do. But even in the last sentence, thoughtlessly though she had spoken it, there was an implied consciousness of the wide difference in their social standing, all too prominent to that sensitive ear.
A minute afterwards St. John looked round for him, and could not see him.
"Where's Henry Arkell?" he asked of Georgina.
She looked round also.