I did not know what she meant, but his face went black again.
'What do you mean?'
'I was merely commenting on the coincidence.'
'Coincidence!' I could see that angry words rose to his lips, but he choked them back again. He managed, with difficulty, to smile. 'My dear Edith, I'm afraid you allow yourself to sympathise so warmly with Mrs. Merrett's misfortune, that you confuse the issues. What has my seeing the one man to do with my seeing the other?'
'I didn't say it had anything.'
'Then why drag it in?'
'Hadn't you better go on with your story?'
She smiled; and there was something about her smile which seemed to sting him as if she had cut him across the face with a whip. I believe he trembled; though whether it was with rage or not I could not say. When he spoke again all his affability had vanished. His voice was dry and hard.
'We will postpone the continuation of my story, as you call it, to a further occasion. Are there any other questions, Mrs. Merrett, which you would like to ask me? Pray ask them. Whether they do or do not impugn my veracity is not of the slightest consequence. I am in the box. Nor does it matter that I have a rather pressing engagement. That I should suffer for your--may I say, erratic husband? Well, at any rate, his erratic proceeding is, I presume, only poetic justice. Though I don't myself see where the justice quite comes in.'
I could be just as proud as him, in my way; and I let him see it. I tried to make myself as stiff as he was; though I don't suppose I came within a mile of it.