“We don’t seem much the worse for it, whatever it is,” she answers, trying to laugh.
“Don’t we? I think you can’t have looked in the glass lately.”
She puts up her hand with a gesture of futile anger to her face, as if to chastise it for its blabbing treachery; but speech has gone from her.
“I do not want you to tell me anything about it,” Rupert says in a steady voice. “It could not be pleasant for you, and it would do me no good. I wished to bring you out—not on the high-road; that was your own precautionary measure”—with a faint stinging touch of sarcasm—“but out of possible eye and earshot, to consult with you.” She turns her woeful eyes, in a deep humiliation of asking upon him; but words are still denied her. “To consult you as to how we are to get ourselves out of this impasse.” Once again her dumb look seeks to penetrate his meaning. “It would be perfectly simple if it were only we two; we might settle it between ourselves. It is, of course, my father who complicates it.”
The voice is still even and quiet, but its matter-of-fact composure affects her far more than any raving denunciation could do. What does it take for granted? And why? She must speak, must protest, must find out how much he knows.
“You are implying that you wish our engagement to end? Have you—any—any reason for it?”
“Haven’t I?”
The question thus returned upon her would strike her once more dumb, if she did not wrench a faint retort out of herself.
“You—you know your own feelings best.”
“And yours?”