"I say—you know—don't be too hard on a fellow. I d—did jolly well care."
"Did?"
"Yes, did. She can go to the devil now for all I care."
"Really——" said Muriel, then most unnecessarily she added: "Have you—have you quarrelled?"
"No. We've not quarrelled. We just—I just—— Oh, damn it all. We've just come to an end of it, that's all."
"I'm sorry." It was all that Muriel could trust herself to say.
He rose abruptly from the table, went to the fireplace and leant against it. "Oh, it's all right. You'd have to know some time. Every one will know soon enough. I should have known. It was the b—beastly place. She said that she couldn't stand living at the Weare Grange—wanted to drag me up to town. Good Lord! One would have thought a kid of two would have known I couldn't stick leaving the old place. 'Tisn't as if there was only oneself to consider anyhow—let alone hunting and shooting and all that, I've got to look after the estate."
"Of course," said Muriel softly.
An extraordinary thing was happening to her. The pain of agitation slowly faded. She found herself growing calm, and detached, and full of sympathy.
"I might have known that she could never stick it," he continued, hardly noticing her, "all that being engaged to me when I was in Germany and all that—it wasn't so difficult. But I suppose that being engaged to a fellow is one thing and marrying him another. I might have known." Fiercely he turned upon Muriel. "I suppose you knew?"