Penelope did not answer. She had turned from me to the parasol and the sand. I repeated the question.
"Herbert Talcott is married--a year now," she said in a measured tone. "His wife was a Miss Carmody--the daughter of Dennis Carmody, who owns the Sagamore--or something like that--mine." A pause. Her head tossed. "He recovered very quickly."
"There are some things which you will never understand," she answered carelessly.
"There are some things which you must understand," I cried. "The hardest task that ever I had was to go to your uncle as I did, like a bearer of idle gossip. It would have been easier to let you go on as you were going, ignorant and blind. I knew that it meant an end of our friendship. That day when I spoke I believed that I was going out of your life forever. I was not surprised when, on the Avenue, you looked at me as though I were beneath your notice." I rose and stood before her. "Had I to do it over again, I would, a thousand times, for your sake. And didn't I prove that it was for your sake, when I banished myself and gave up all claim to you?"
"Claim to me?" Penelope's lips curled defiantly. "I should have thought that you would have been occupied making good your claim to Miss Dodd, or Bodd, or whatever her name was. I suppose you did right, but none the less it was unpleasant. I thank you. You see I forgive you, or we should not be here now talking." She raised her parasol as though about to rise. "We must go. My uncle is waiting for me, and if you care to, you may come with me and see him before we start for Rome."
She did not rise; but the matter-of-fact tone in which she made the threat chilled me, and for a moment I stood silent, looking down at the black figure. The brim of her hat hid her face from me, but she was making circles in the sand. I asked myself if this was the time for me to speak of that claim, to speak my whole heart to her.
She looked up. "David," she said, "you need not stand there so long. It might be bad for your wound."
"My wound?" I asked, and I took my old place at her side.
"Why, yes," she said. "Were you not wounded in the Sudan? Uncle Rufus told me that you were. He read about it in the papers. A Major Bennett, or somebody, ran out under a heavy fire and pulled you out of the hands of a lot of Arabs and saved your life."