She was trying to force her brain to work, but she could not; she was only conscious of a faint sort of curiosity as to whether Jimmy were lying to her; but somehow he did not look as if he were. She tried to speak to him, but no words would come.
Suddenly he raised his head; he was very pale. "Well?" he said defiantly.
His eyes were hard and full of hurt; hurt because of another woman, Christine told herself, in furious pain; hurt because the woman he had really and truly loved had gone out of his life for ever.
She tried to say that she was sorry, but the words seemed to choke her—she was not sorry; she was glad. She was passionately glad that the beautiful woman whom she had at first so ardently admired was now only a name between them.
"So you've no need to be jealous any more," said Jimmy Challoner, after a moment.
No need to be jealous! There was still the same need; death cannot take memory away with it. Christine felt as if the dead woman were more certainly between them now, keeping them apart, than ever before.
The silence fell again; then suddenly Christine moved to the door.
Jimmy caught her hand.
"Where are you going? Don't be a little fool. It's ever so late; you can't leave the hotel to-night."
"I am not going to stay here with you." She did not look at him; did not even faintly guess how much he was longing for a kind word, a little sympathy. He had had the worst shock of his inconsequent life when, in reply to that urgent summons, he had raced round to Cynthia Farrow's flat, and found that he was too late.