“Why?” Hermione said, sharply.
“Wasn’t it because of Peppina?”
“Peppina?”
“Yes; didn’t you—”
He looked into her face and saw at once that he had made a false step, that Vere had not told her mother of Peppina’s outburst.
“Didn’t I—what?”
He still looked at her.
“What?” she repeated. “What has Peppina to do with it?”
“Nothing. Only—don’t you remember what you said to me about not keeping Vere in cotton-wool?”
She knew that he was deceiving her. A hopeless, desperate feeling of being in the dark rushed over her. What was friendship without sincerity? Nothing—less than nothing. She felt as if her whole body stiffened with a proud reserve to meet the reserve with which he treated her. And she felt as if her friend of years, the friend whose life she had perhaps saved in Africa, had turned in that moment into a stranger, or—even into an enemy. For this furtive withdrawal from their beautiful and open intimacy was like an act of hostility. She was almost dazed for an instant. Then her brain worked with feverish activity. What had Emile meant? Her permission to Vere was connected in his mind with Peppina. He must know something about Vere and Peppina that she did not know. She looked at him, and her face, usually so sensitive, so receptive, so warmly benign when it was turned to his, was hard and cold.