“Am I shamefaced? I did not know.”
“Yes, and I can guess the reason. You did not keep your word to me, though you knew how anxious I was to see you at the end of your fortnight at Kingston; and the reason is that you have something on your mind which you fear to tell me—which you are ashamed to tell.”
“No, Mary, that is not so. I am not ashamed, but——”
“Oh yes, of course, I quite understand—but!”
“Dear Mary, if you will be a little patient with me you shall know everything I have to tell, and then you will know exactly why I didn't come to you the moment I got back to town. For the last two or three days I have been in pursuit of the Chances, and have at last found them.”
“How did you find them?”
“It is a very long story, Mary, and someone you know and that you are not friendly with is mixed up with it. I met him accidentally at Kingston, where there was a dinner-party and he was among the guests. Mrs. Travers introduced him to me, and he took me in to dinner; and it was very painful to me—to both of us; but after a time a thought came into my head—Mary, listen to me, I can't tell you how it all came about—how I found Constance—without speaking of him. Don't you think it would be better to tell you everything, from my first chance meeting with him, and all that was said as well as I can remember it now?”
Miss Starbrow had listened quietly, with averted face, which Fan imagined must have grown very black; she was silent for some time, and at last replied:
“Fan, I can hardly credit my own senses when you talk in that calm way about a person who—of course I know who you mean. What are you made of, I wonder—are you merely a wax figure and not a human being at all? Once I imagined that you loved me, but now I see what a delusion it was; only those who can hate are able to love, and you are as incapable of the one as of the other.”
After delivering herself of this protest she half turned her back on her friend, and for a time there was silence between them, and then Fan spoke.