"That is, I believe, an attribute of the Almighty," I replied.
For a few moments she was absorbed in the task of digging with the end of her parasol round the edge of a prominent black pebble. As the dry earth crumbled, the pebble worked loose, and she was free to hit it away and look up at me again.
"You know enough."
"For what?" I asked.
She sighed and waved her hand across the dusty, unshaded walk.
"For passing by on the other side."
"Habit is sometimes very strong," I said.
We stood looking at one another reflectively for a few minutes, each perhaps wondering why the other did not make an excuse to break away. I found her so self-possessed that it was difficult to believe what I knew to be the truth. I have met unfaithful wives before, I have seen men and women living in many kinds of social outlawry, but with none of them did it seem to make so little difference as with Mrs. O'Rane. She was not defiant, she was hardly even callous; and her manner was so natural that I felt the last six months might well have been blotted out of her life. Once she lowered her eyes to look at the little platinum watch; then raised them again with a friendly smile. She was dressed with unostentatious distinction in a blue coat and skirt, with a high collar to the coat and a tight-fitting amber-coloured waistcoat with round, pageboy's buttons; there was a high-crowned hat to match the coat, white gloves, grey stockings and black shoes with a pearl-coloured border. Though her eyes were tired and her cheeks a little pale, she looked wonderfully young and carefree.
"You thought I wouldn't do it," she said at length, more to convict me of bad judgement, I think, than to defend her own conduct. "Men are so curious.... You all had the clearest warning, only you wouldn't take it. You wouldn't see that it was the only thing left for me to do."
"And you are still of that mind? You feel it was the right thing?"