"You never cared two straws for me! I knew that. You needn't throw it in my face."
"After all, I was a married woman."
"I wonder how much you minded when you heard your husband was lying dead on the veldt?"
"My dear boy, he wasn't; he died of fever at Durban—quite comfortably, in a bed."
"Were you sorry?"
"Of course I was! He was extremely satisfactory—and not at all exacting."
James did not know why he asked the questions; they came to his lips unbidden. He was sick at heart, angry, contemptuous.
"I'm going to marry a Mr. Bryant—but, of course, not immediately," she went on, occupied with her own thoughts, and pleased to talk of them.
"What is he?"
"Nothing! He's a landed proprietor." She said this with a certain pride.