Jack gave a lazy chuckle. “All men care for women that way—when they can get ’em. Why didn’t you marry him Claud? Why did you give him the go-by?”
“The go-by?” she said incredulously. “Why, he never wanted to marry me. We were only—friends, the best of friends.”
“I read somewhere in something that friendship is a good foundation for marriage. What was the beastly quotation? ‘Love is friendship set on fire.’ It impressed me, because Fay and I were awful good chums for a long time and we never—never till we were married.”
He said it in a shamefaced way, like a schoolboy convicted of saying his prayers. His face had gone a curious pink, and he avoided meeting Claudia’s eyes.
But she was not thinking of his confession, she was thinking of Colin Paton. Why had he not married? Was her easy explanation the right one? Why, no, he had never wanted to marry her.
“You don’t imagine Colin Paton wanted to marry me, do you?” she asked.
“Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised if you and he had fixed it up. You used to go about a lot together, and you’re not a woman a man would feel platonically about. I thought he went away so hurriedly because of your engagement. But, of course, you know him much better than I.”
She found the thought curiously interesting and a little exciting, even while she tried to dismiss it. He had never said a word that could be construed into love-making. Surely there would have been some word or look that would have betrayed him if it were as Jack suggested.
Jack looked at his watch. “By Jove, we must go if we’re going. Come along, old girl, she’s on in the first house at eight, and it’s a long drive down there. It’s the wilds of beyond, over the river. Go and put on something quiet and oldish. There’s a good deal of dust knocking about behind the scenes.”