Still, he had nothing to do but conceal his ignorance as well as he could, and pick up the loose threads as he went along. He was able, at all events, to assure her that he would not, if he could help it, incur her displeasure by speaking to her "like that" in future.
"Thanks," she said. "I know it was only a temporary forgetfulness; and--and if what you suspect should prove to be really true--why, then, Mr. Tourmalin, then, of course, you may come and tell me so."
"I will," he said; "I shall make a point of it. Only," he thought to himself, "she will have to tell me first _what_ I'm to tell her."
"And in the meantime," she said, "let us go on as before, as if you had never brought yourself to confide your sad story to me."
So he had told a sad story, had he? he thought, much bewildered; for, as he had no story belonging to him of that character, he was afraid he must have invented one, while, of course, he could not ask for information.
"Yes," he said, with great presence of mind, "forget my unhappy story--let it never be mentioned between us again. We will go on as before--_exactly_ as before."
"It is our only course," she agreed. "And now," she added, with a cheerfulness that struck him as a little forced, "suppose we talk of something else."
Peter considered this a good suggestion, provided it was a subject he knew a little more about; which, unhappily, it was not.
"You never answered my question," she reminded him.
He would have liked, as Ministers say in the House, "previous notice of that question;" but he could hardly say so in so many words.
"No," he said. "Forgive me if I say that it is a--a painful subject to me."
"I understand that," she said, gently (it was more than _he_ did); "but tell me only this: was it _that_ that made you behave as you did? You are sure you had no _other_ reason?"
["If I say I had," thought Peter, "she will ask me what it was."] "I will be as frank as possible, Miss Tyrrell," he replied. "I had _no_ other reason. What other reason _could_ I have had?"
"I half fancied--but I ought to have seen from the first that, whatever it was, it was not that. And now you have made everything quite clear."
"I am glad you find it so," said Peter, with a touch of envy.