George shrugged his shoulders, slipped out, navigated the shoals of whispering women, and reached the clean air. He buttoned his overcoat and shuffled through the dead leaves beneath the trees until he found himself at the spot where Lambert and he had fought. He recalled his hot boasts of that day. Fulfilment had seemed simple enough then. The scene just submitted reminded him how short a distance he had actually travelled.
He knew she would pass that way on her return to the big house, so he waited, and when he heard her feet disturbing the dead leaves he didn't turn. She came closer than he had expected, and he heard her contralto voice, quick and defiant:
"I hadn't expected to see you. I didn't quite realize what I was saying. I should have had more respect for any one's grief."
Having said that, she was going on, but he turned and stopped her. As he looked at her he reflected that everything had altered since that day—she most of all. Then the woman had been a little visible in the child. Now, he fancied, the child survived in the woman only through the persistence of this old quarrel. He stared at her lips, recalling his boast that no man should touch them unless it were George Morton. He was no nearer them than he had been that day. Unless he got nearer some man would. It was incredible that she hadn't married. She would marry.
"In the sense you mean, I have no grief," he said.
"Then I needn't have bothered. I once said you were a—a——"
"Something melodramatic. A beast, I think it was," he answered. "If you don't mind I'll walk on with you for a little way."
"No," she said.
"If you please."
"You've no perception," she cried, angrily.