"You shall have every proper opportunity of meeting any one you like."
"Oh yes."
"And I shall be only too gl-glad to take back everything!"
Imogene sat motionless and silent. Mrs. Bowen broke out again with a sort of violence; the years teach us something of self-control, perhaps, but they weaken and unstring the nerves. In this opposition of silence to silence, the woman of the world was no match for the inexperienced girl.
"Have you nothing to say, Imogene?"
"I never thought of him in that way at all. I don't know what to say yet. It—confuses me. I—I can't imagine it. But if you think that he is trying to amuse himself——"
"I never said that!"
"No, I know it."
"He likes to make you talk, and to talk with you. But he is perfectly idle here, and—there is too much difference, every way. The very good in him makes it the worse. I suppose that after talking with him every one else seems insipid."
"Yes."