The thought stung her pride, and she lifted her head and met his eyes with a smile.
"Don't you think," she said, "it's more sensible—with everything so changed in our lives—that we should meet as friends, in this way? I wanted to tell you that you needn't feel—feel in the least unhappy about me."
A deep flush rose to his forehead. "Oh, I know—I know that—" he declared hastily; and added, with a factitious animation: "But thank you for telling me."
"There's nothing, is there," she continued, "to make our meeting in this way in the least embarrassing or painful to either of us, when both have found. . . ." She broke off, and held her hand out to him. "I've heard about you and Coral," she ended.
He just touched her hand with cold fingers, and let it drop. "Thank you," he said for the third time.
"You won't sit down?"
He sat down.
"Don't you think," she continued, "that the new way of . . . of meeting as friends . . . and talking things over without ill-will . . . is much pleasanter and more sensible, after all?"
He smiled. "It's immensely kind of you—to feel that."
"Oh, I do feel it!" She stopped short, and wondered what on earth she had meant to say
