'So we are to meet as strangers. I suppose that will be best. It would be impossible to ask for explanations. Poor Zoe! One does not know all her history. She told me once that she had been very unhappy. I have heard her crying in her room at night. Perhaps, she is to be more pitied than blamed. It is her husband whom I find it difficult to forgive and to forget. He is like a nightmare: he cannot be put so easily out of my mind.'
'Unfortunately, no. I, who have thought of him all my life, must continue to think of him.'
'You will forgive him, Philippa. You must. Besides, you have less to forgive. He has never offered his hand and heart to you.'
Philippa blushed a rosy red, and confusion gathered to her eyes, because there had, in fact, been many occasions when things were said which—— Armorel was sorry that she had said this.
'You mean, Armorel, that he actually—did this—to you?'
'Yes. It was only the other day—the morning after we read the play. He came to the National Gallery, where I often go in the morning, and, in one of the rooms, he told me how much he loved me—words, however, go for nothing in such things—and kindly said that marriage with me would complete his happiness.'
'Oh! He is a villain—a villain indeed!' Her voice rose and her cheeks flushed. 'Forgive him, Armorel? Never!'
'Considering that it was only a day or two before he was going to announce in the paper the fact that he had been married for three years, it does seem pretty bad, doesn't it?'
'And you, Armorel?'
'Fortunately, I was able to dismiss him unmistakably.'