‘But on my Honour! On my Soul and Honour, I tell you she doesn’t care for me. She told me so last night. I would have told you then if Vansuythen hadn’t been with you. If it is for her sake that you’ll have nothing to say to me, you can make your mind easy. It’s Kurrell.’
‘What?’ said Mrs. Vansuythen, with a hysterical little laugh. ‘Kurrell! Oh, it can’t be! You two must have made some horrible mistake. Perhaps you you lost your temper, or misunderstood, or something. Things can’t be as wrong as you say.’
Mrs. Vansuythen had shifted her defence to avoid the man’s pleading, and was desperately trying to keep him to a side-issue.
‘There must be some mistake,’ she insisted, ‘and it can be all put right again.’
Boulte laughed grimly.
‘It can’t be Captain Kurrell! He told me that he had never taken the least the least interest in your wife, Mr. Boulte. Oh, do listen! He said he had not. He swore he had not,’ said Mrs. Vansuythen.
The purdah rustled, and the speech was cut short by the entry of a little thin woman, with big rings round her eyes. Mrs. Vansuythen stood up with a gasp.
‘What was that you said?’ asked Mrs. Boulte. ‘Never mind that man. What did Ted say to you? What did he say to you? What did he say to you?’
Mrs. Vansuythen sat down helplessly on the sofa, overborne by the trouble of her questioner.
‘He said I can’t remember exactly what he said but I understood him to say that is But, really, Mrs. Boulte, isn’t it rather a strange question?’