"I don't think I really knew it before. I'm sure I didn't know it. What made me understand it was the way I felt when I found I had hurt you, had done you a wrong for a moment. Ruby, my own feeling has punished me so much that I don't think you can want to punish me any more."
"I punish you!" she said. "But what wrong have you done me? And how could I punish you?"
"I did you a wrong this morning by thinking for a moment—" He stopped; he found he could not put it quite clearly into words. "Over Harwich and the boys," he concluded.
"Oh, that! That didn't matter!" she said.
She spoke coldly, but she was feeling more excited, more emotional, than she had felt for a very long time, than she had known that she could feel.
"It mattered very much. But I don't think I really thought it."
"Yes, you did!" she said, sharply.
He sat straight up, like a man very much startled.
"You did think it. Don't try to get out of it, Nigel."
"Ruby, I'm not trying. Why, haven't I said—"