"I'm glad you think it was jolly. My remembrances are not quite so pleasant."
She laughed a little--not flinching at all--her face rosy to his challenge.
"Oh, yes, they are--or should be. What's the use of blackening the past because it couldn't be the present. My dear Roger, if I hadn't--well, let's talk plainly!--if I hadn't thrown you over, where would you be now? We should be living in West Kensington, and I should be taking boarders--or--no!--a country-house, perhaps, with paying guests. You would be teaching the cockney idea how to shoot, at half a guinea a day, and I should be buying my clothes second-hand through the _Exchange and Mart_. Whereas--whereas----"
"You are a very rich man--you have a charming wife--a dear little girl--you can get into Parliament--travel, speculate, race, anything you please. And I did it all!"
"I don't agree with you," he said drily. She laughed again.
"Well, we can't argue it--can we? I only wanted to point out to you the plain, bare truth, that there is nothing in the world to prevent our being excellent friends again--_now_. But first--and once more--_my letters!_"
Her tone was a little peremptory, and Roger's face clouded.
"I found two of them last night, by the merest chance--in an old dispatch-box I took to America. They were posted to you on the way here."
"I know--so you said. I could only find two."
"Was the particular letter I mentioned one of them?"
"No. I searched everywhere. I don't believe I have it."
"You certainly have it. Please look again."
He broke out with some irritation, insisting that if it had not been returned it had been either lost or destroyed. It could matter to no one.
Some snaring, entangling instinct--an instinct of the hunter--made her persist. She must have it. It was a point of honour. "Poor Theresa is so unhappy, so pursued! You saw that odious paragraph last week? I can't run the risk!"
With a groan of annoyance, he promised at last that he would look again. Then the sparkling eyes changed, the voice softened.
She praised--she rewarded him. By smooth transitions she slipped into ordinary talk; of his candidature for the County Council--the points of the great horse he rode--the gossip of the neighbourhood--the charms of Beatty.