"If you prevent my going, of course I cannot help myself," she answers, putting on a little air of offended dignity to hide her tremulous embarrassment.
"Don't be offended! Do you know" (leaving his post of defence to follow her)—"do you know what I have been doing ever since you went—not to bed apparently?"
"Drinking brandy and soda-water, probably" (looking rather surly, and affecting to yawn).
"That would have been hardly worth mentioning. I have been wondering whether my luck is on the turn. I have been da——I mean very unlucky all my life. I never put any money on a horse that he was not sure to be nowhere. Luck does turn, sometimes, doesn't it? Do you think mine is turning?"
"How can I tell?"
"You don't ask in what way I have been so unlucky. Why don't you? Have you no curiosity?"
"I never like to seem inquisitive," answers Esther, coldly, hoping that he does not notice how the white hands that lie on her lap are trembling.
"Do you recollect my telling you that I had made a great fool of myself once?"
"Yes."
"Do you care to hear about it, or do you not?" pulling at his drooping moustache, in some irritation at her feigned indifference.