Faith tried hard to recover her composure and look at things more sensibly.
After all, what had happened? Little enough, she knew, but she could not forget the picture Peg had made during those moments on the landing or the look of admiration in the Beggar Man's eyes.
She had felt herself colourless and insignificant beside Peg, and her soul writhed as she recalled the mocking, nervous words that the elder girl had spoken.
"It's like a bit out of a novelette, isn't it?... Heroine opens her door and finds her best friend talking to her husband, tête-à-tête, as it were."
Though she knew that Peg had meant no harm, and though she had heard her say similar things scores of times before, to-night somehow the words grated deeply on Faith's sensitiveness.
It was as if someone had held up a scorching light in front of her friend, showing just how rough and unrefined she really was and could be.
Faith remembered how, not so long ago, Forrester had told her that he wished her friendship with Peg to cease. Did he wish it still?
She lay awake for hours, turning things over in her mind, torturing herself with doubts and perplexities.
It was not that she cared for him at all, so she told herself again and again. It was just that it was so horrible to think that perhaps he and Peg ... and then once more her better nature came uppermost. How could she think such base things? How dared she? Peg was her best friend, had proved herself in a thousand ways, and Forrester—when had he ever been anything but kind and considerate?