“I got up and went to the window. Still impenetrable to a sense of his own clumsiness, Armadale followed me. If I had been strong enough to toss him out of the window into the sea, I should certainly have done it at that moment. Not being strong enough, I looked steadily at the view over the bay, and gave him a hint, the broadest and rudest I could think of, to go.
“‘A lovely night for a walk,’ I said, ‘if you are tempted to walk back to the hotel.’
“I doubt if he heard me. At any rate, I produced no sort of effect on him. He stood staring sentimentally at the moonlight; and—there is really no other word to express it—blew a sigh. I felt a presentiment of what was coming, unless I stopped his mouth by speaking first.
“‘With all your fondness for England,’ I said, ‘you must own that we have no such moonlight as that at home.’
“He looked at me vacantly, and blew another sigh.
“‘I wonder whether it is fine to-night in England as it is here?’ he said. ‘I wonder whether my dear little girl at home is looking at the moonlight, and thinking of me?’
“I could endure it no longer. I flew out at him at last.
“‘Good heavens, Mr. Armadale!’ I exclaimed, ‘is there only one subject worth mentioning, in the narrow little world you live in? I’m sick to death of Miss Milroy. Do pray talk of something else?’
“His great, broad, stupid face colored up to the roots of his hideous yellow hair. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he stammered, with a kind of sulky surprise. ‘I didn’t suppose—’ He stopped confusedly, and looked from me to Midwinter. I understood what the look meant. ‘I didn’t suppose she could be jealous of Miss Milroy after marrying you!’ That is what he would have said to Midwinter, if I had left them alone together in the room!
“As it was, Midwinter had heard us. Before I could speak again—before Armadale could add another word—he finished his friend’s uncompleted sentence, in a tone that I now heard, and with a look that I now saw, for the first time.