"With Evie? No—oh, no, no."
"Well——"
And the next time she interrupted me was merely to ask me whether I had another cigarette.
I admit that there had come over me as I had talked an increasing sense of the burden I had placed upon her. Nor do I mean that I had not had this sense before. I had, indeed, thought of little else during my walk to Chalfont the previous day. But it is yet another coin added to the price of a righteous but unlicenced slaying that a man's selfishness becomes merely inordinate. I had known more or less what she must bear; exactly what she had to bear it with I had taken for granted. She had perhaps herself to thank for that, and that tense and incredible calm she had shown on the night I had dined at the Berkeley. I had known the depths of her womanliness that other night; soon I was to learn the shallows of her femininity.
"Well," she said, when at last I had finished, "I really don't see what else you expected. And," she went on, but more slowly, and somehow as if she didn't quite trust herself, "I don't see either what you expect of me. I told you what I thought before."
"You mean that I should have to tell her?"
"Yes."
"Well, tell me why."
"You've just told me why."
"Well, put it another way. You see the frightful risk—to her. The question is, ought it to be taken?"