"I seem to have failed again," she sighed; and this time there was an unaffected wistfulness in her voice.
"What were you trying to bring off?" he asked harshly.
"I hardly know.... I'm not trying to make a scene now, but don't you think you've been a bit hard on me? I was a fool ever to have anything to do with Fatty Webster: good. I was a fool to go to that séance: good. If you like, I was a coward to come away. But what actually happened was just bad luck, and you've been talking as if it was my fault. I didn't enjoy it very much, I don't like thinking about it; it's just possible that it was a very horrible shock. I wasn't asking you to approve of it, but you might have been a little bit more sympathetic."
Her lips were trembling, and Jack remembered with consternation the night of the Croxton ball when he had made her cry. Then and now he had said nothing that he wanted to retract, but all reasonable discussion ended when tears were brought in as an argument.
"It must have been beastly for you," he assented. "I should have been more sympathetic, perhaps, if I'd thought that it would have any permanent effect on you."
"Don't you think it will?"
"I shan't be there to see," he laughed. "I've been dismissed."
Barbara sighed and reminded him of her headache by drawing her hand slowly across her eyes. Since the night of the ball, when he sat beside her at the piano, he had forgotten how beautiful her hands were.
"You made me lose my temper. I'm sorry, if I said anything rude. There! Do you want to be dismissed?"