Susan Fleet sat down and folded her white-gloved hands in her neat tailor-made lap.
"I'm sorry for that," she said.
"And seeing that island, seeing all these lovely places and things makes it so much worse. I didn't know—till I came here. At least, I didn't really know I knew. Oh, Miss Fleet, how happy I could be here if I wasn't so dreadfully wretched."
A sort of wave of desperation—it seemed a hot wave—surged through Charmian. All the strangeness of Claude Heath flowed upon her and receded from her, leaving her in a sort of dreadful acrid dryness.
"Surely," she said, "when you are in places like this you must feel that nothing is of any real use if one has it alone."
"But I'm with you now," returned Miss Fleet, evidently wishing to give Charmian a chance to regain her reserve.
"With me! What's the use of that? You must know what I mean."
"I suppose you mean a man."
Charmian blushed.
"That sounds—oh, well, how can we help it? It is not our fault. We have to be so, even if we hate it. And I do hate it. I don't want to care about him. I never have. He's not in my set. He doesn't know anyone I know, or do anything I do, or care for almost anything I care for—perhaps. But I feel I could do such things for him, that he will never do for himself. And I want to do them. I must do them, but he will never let me."