I awoke with a start to the fact that I was staring at her. A slight flush had crept into her pale cheeks.
'Don't!' she said suddenly, with a little gesture of irritation.
The word and the gesture killed, as if they had been a blow, a kind of sentimental tenderness which had been stealing over me.
'What are you doing here?' I asked.
She was silent.
'Please don't think I want to pry into your affairs,' I said viciously. 'I was only interested in the coincidence that we should meet here like this.'
She turned to me impulsively. Her face had lost its hard look.
'Oh, Peter,' she said, 'I'm sorry. I am sorry.'
It was my chance, and I snatched at it with a lack of chivalry which I regretted almost immediately. But I was feeling bitter, and bitterness makes a man do cheap things.
'Sorry?' I said, politely puzzled. 'Why?'