"Yes, yes, our music is always good, of course. So glad you liked it. But what I want to say is that you haven't heard my husband preach this morning."
Malling looked at her with curiosity, but without astonishment. He might have acted a part with her as he had the previous day with her husband. But, as he looked, he came to a rapid decision, to be more frank with the woman than he had been with the man.
"You mean, of course, that your husband was not in his best vein," he said. "I won't pretend that I didn't realize that."
"You didn't hear him at all. He wasn't himself—simply."
She sat down on a sofa and clasped her hands together.
"I cannot tell you what I was feeling," she added. "And he used to be so full of self-confidence. It was his great gift. His self-confidence carried him through everything. Nothing could have kept him back if—"
Suddenly she checked herself and looked, with a sort of covert inquiry, at Malling.
"You must think me quite mad to talk like this," she said, with a return to her manner when he first met her.
"Shall I tell you what I really think?" he asked, leaning forward in the chair he had taken.
"Yes, do, do!"