“No, neither is he mine.”
This admission was at least the truth. I had known it long ago. But what had been the cause of difference between them was hidden in deepest mystery. Sir Bernard, as old Mr. Courtenay’s most intimate friend, knew, in all probability, of his engagement to her, and of its rupture in favour of her sister Mary. It might even be that Sir Bernard had had a hand in the breaking of the engagement. If so, that would well account for her violent hostility towards him.
Such thoughts, with others, flashed through my mind as I sat there facing her. She was leaning back, her hands fallen idly upon her lap, peering straight at me through that spotted veil which, half-concealing her wondrous beauty, imparted to her an additional air of mystery.
“You have quarrelled with Sir Bernard, I presume?” I hazarded.
“Quarrelled!” she echoed. “We were never friends.”
Truly she possessed all a clever woman’s presence of mind in the evasion of a leading question.
“He was an acquaintance of yours?”
“An acquaintance—yes. But I have always distrusted him.”
“Mary likes him, I believe,” I remarked. “He was poor Courtenay’s most intimate friend for many years.”
“She judges him from that standpoint alone. Any of her husband’s friends were hers, and she was fully cognisant of Sir Bernard’s unceasing attention to the sufferer.”