"If I were a woman like you and wouldn't marry a man who loved me like Jaff Chayne, and who had done for me all that Jaff Chayne had done for you, I'd pray to God to blast me and fill my body with worms."
And then she burst out of the room, and, like a child seeking protection, came and threw herself down by my side.
What happened when she left them I know, because Jaffery kept me up till three o'clock in the morning narrating it to me, while he poured into his Gargantuan self hogsheads of whisky and soda.
When Liosha had gone, they eyed one another for a while in embarrassing silence, until Doria spoke:
"She misunderstood—when she came in. Quite natural. It was your touch of pity that I couldn't bear. I wasn't repelling you, as she seemed to think."
"It cut me to the heart to see you in such grief," said Jaffery. "I only thought of comforting you."
"I know." She sat on a chair by the window and looked out at the pouring rain.
"Tell me," she said, without turning round, "what did she mean by saying she had the right to interfere in your affairs?"