"Because it puts you in a fix." She had a half-hearted laugh for man's superior wisdom, with his eyes closed to all practical issues. Then her voice got a sudden tone. "Come, we must part, you and I! There is nothing else for it. It is all nonsense about your wife. She will come to her senses. She will have to, if the Bill passes."
"I should not try to compel her against her will."
"Are you sure? Might it not be your duty to the children?... Now, don't let's talk about it any more. It must come to good-bye in the end...." Her words hung fire, but she kept her self-control admirably; no one could have called her excited, much less hysterical. Then she said, in a quick, subdued voice: "I shall always think of our good time—before all this—as one of the happiest times of my life. Now good-bye!"
Why could the man not shake hands and go, without more ado? Of course, that would have been the correct form—left his cards—sent his compliments to The Family—bon voyage!—all that sort of thing! Well!—perhaps the woman did not mean him to.
What happened was this—that is, this is all the story needs: that Judith repeated decisively, "Good-bye!" and Challis said never a word. But he had her hands in his, and it was some slight emphasis in his clasp, or some little turn a bystander would not have seen, from which she shrank back, saying: "No—or listen! Promise me again you will not come to Biarritz." To which he replied: "I promise." Then she said: "Very well, then—on those terms say good-bye how you like."
Then it was that Challis made matters ten times worse, ten times harder to deal with in that period of his life that followed. It is a curious thing that one good long kiss—a transaction that when in a frolic has absolutely no meaning whatever—should acquire from its concomitants a force to cling about the memory, and in a sense to warp the understanding, of its executant—the only word we can find at a short notice. It did, in this case, and possibly Calypso meant it should do so all along—administered her little dose of nectar with a full knowledge of its powers as an intoxicant. Indeed, if Miss Arkroyd had it in her heart through all this last interview to complete the winding of that skein she began a twelvemonth back, she could scarcely have handled the thread more cleverly.
It is not for this story to decide what the young lady had in her heart. For all it knows, she may have felt either triumphant, disgusted, or indifferent, when she saw the name of Mr. Alfred Challis the author—"Titus Scroop" in a parenthesis—in the list of recent arrivals at Biarritz, and did not mention the fact to her hostess or any of her friends. But she met Mr. Challis on the esplanade next day, and introduced him to them equably as a friend of her father's. She must have forgiven him his broken promise, or ignored it.