‘For his sake, poor fellow, I might.’
‘Coming along I said to myself, “She CAN score off me badly, but surely she doesn’t want to so much as all that.” Besides, I really only took your leavings, you know. You threw poor Fred Prendergast over.’
‘I am not prepared to discuss that,’ Madeline said, at no pains to smooth the curve out of her lip.
‘Then I thought, “Perhaps—you never can tell with people—she will think it her DUTY to make a fuss.”’
‘That is a possible point of view.’
‘I know. You think I’m an imposter on society and I ought to be exposed, and I suppose you could shut every door in Simla against me if you liked. But you are a friend of my husband’s, Miss Anderson. You would not turn his whole married life into a scandal and ruin his career?’
‘Ruin his career?’
‘Of course. Government is awfully particular. It mayn’t be his fault in the least, but no man is likely to get any big position with a cloud over his domestic affairs. Horace would resign, naturally.’
‘Or take long leave,’ Mrs. Innes added to herself, but she did not give Madeline this alternative. A line or two of nervous irritation marked themselves about her eyes, and her colour had faded. Her hat was less becoming than it had been, and she had pulled a button off her glove.
‘Besides,’ she went on quickly, ‘it isn’t as if you could do any good, you know. The harm was done once for all when I let him think he’d married me. I thought then—well, I had to take it or leave it—and every week I expected to hear of Frederick’s death. Then I meant to tell Horace myself, and have the ceremony over again. He couldn’t refuse. And all these years it’s been like living on a volcano, in the fear of meeting New York people. Out here there never are any, but in England I dye my hair, and alter my complexion.’