And then pity had its way with Jill. He had treated her badly; for a time she had thought that he had crushed all the heart out of her: but he was suffering, and she hated to see anybody suffer.
“Besides,” she said, “I’m engaged to somebody else.”
As a suffocating man, his lips to the tube of oxygen, gradually comes back to life, Derek revived,—slowly as the meaning of her words sank into his mind, then with a sudden abruptness.
“What!” he cried.
“I’m going to marry somebody else. A man named Wally Mason.”
Derek swallowed. The chalky look died out of his face, and he flushed hotly. His eyes, half relieved, half indignant, glowed under their pent-house of eyebrow. He sat for a moment in silence.
“I think you might have told me before!” he said huffily.
Jill laughed.
“Yes, I suppose I ought to have told you before.”
“Leading me on … !”