‘O no,’ she quickly returned. ‘We have given trouble enough already. We have no right here. But we are the sport of fate, and were obliged to come.’
‘No right here!’ said he in surprise.
‘None. I can’t explain it now,’ answered Helena. ‘This kettle is very slow.’
There was another pause; the proverbial dilatoriness of watched pots was never more clearly exemplified.
Helena’s face was of that sort which seems to ask for assistance without the owner’s knowledge—the very antipodes of Sally’s, which was self-reliance expressed. Darton’s eyes travelled from the kettle to Helena’s face, then back to the kettle, then to the face for rather a longer time. ‘So I am not to know anything of the mystery that has distracted me all the evening?’ he said. ‘How is it that a woman, who refused me because (as I supposed) my position was not good enough for her taste, is found to be the wife of a man who certainly seems to be worse off than I?’
‘He had the prior claim,’ said she.
‘What! you knew him at that time?’
‘Yes, yes! Please say no more,’ she implored.
‘Whatever my errors, I have paid for them during the last five years!’
The heart of Darton was subject to sudden overflowings. He was kind to a fault. ‘I am sorry from my soul,’ he said, involuntarily approaching her. Helena withdrew a step or two, at which he became conscious of his movement, and quickly took his former place. Here he stood without speaking, and the little kettle began to sing.