"
"I can see," Wingrave remarked, "your grievance. You are annoyed
because she regarded you as too easy a victim."
"Perhaps," Aynesworth admitted.
"There was some excuse for her, after all," Wingrave continued coolly.
"She possesses powers which you yourself have already admitted, and
you, I should say, are a fairly impressionable person, so far as her
sex is concerned. Confess now, that she did not leave you altogether
indifferent."
"Perhaps not," Aynesworth admitted reluctantly. He did not care to say
more.
"In case you should feel any curiosity on the subject," Wingrave
remarked, "I may tell you that I have those letters which she was so
anxious to know about, and I shall keep them safe--even from you! You
can amuse yourself with her if you like. You will never be able to
tell her more than I care for her to know."
Aynesworth continued his dinner in silence. After all, he was
beginning to fear that he had made a mistake. Lovell had somehow
contrived to impart a subtly tragic note to his story, but the outcome
of it all seemed to assume a more sordid aspect. These two would meet,
there would be recriminations, a tragic appeal for forgiveness,
possibly some melodramatic attempt at vengeance. The glamour of the
affair seemed to him to be fading away, now that he had come into
actual contact with it. It was not until he began to study his
companion during a somewhat prolonged silence that he felt the
reaction.
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