“One lie more or less hardly matters at this season, Lady Barbara.”
“Dear God! don’t call me that!”
Eric had a full armoury of bitterness, but opportunity killed any desire to use it. He had been ready to find Barbara falsely repentant or as falsely defiant; she would perhaps explain, perhaps scoff; he had not expected that she would plead for mercy because he had unwittingly hurt her.
“I did not seek this meeting,” he answered.
“You never used to be vindictive.”
“I’m doing my best to forget anything I was, anything I’ve done.”
“You hate me as much as that? I thought... No, I hoped, I hoped you meant it when you said that to love me was a liberal education.”
Her softly reproachful tone puffed into flame every memory of his own three years’ suffering, which to her was but an occasion for snatching at a compliment.
“If so, a liberal education has no place for romance. You cured me of that. It was not your fault. As you know, I’d been a semi-invalid all my life; I’d been brought up among women who shewed me only unselfishness and devotion and patience and sacrifice. I could trust them; they told the truth. When you used the same terms, I thought they meant the same things to you.”
She bit her lip until it shewed grey under the white gleam of her teeth: