'I wish I could,' Lushington answered, after a moment's hesitation.
'If you know, you can,' said Margaret, taking the upper hand and meaning to keep it.
'Oh yes, it does,' retorted Margaret energetically. 'I'll tell you why. If it's anything on your side, it's not fair and honest to keep it from me after writing to me as you have written all winter. But if it's the other way, there's nothing you can possibly know about me which you cannot tell me, and if you think there is, then some one has been telling you what is not true.'
'It's nothing against you; I assure you it's not.'
'Then there is a woman in the case. Why should you not say so frankly? We are not bound to each other in any way, I'm sure. I believe I once asked you to marry me, and you refused!' She laughed rather sharply. 'That does not constitute an engagement!'
'You put the point rather brutally, I think,' said Lushington.
'Perhaps, but isn't it quite true? It was not said in so many words, but you knew I meant it, and but for a quixotic scruple of yours we should have been married. I remember asking you what we were making ourselves miserable about, since we both cared so much. It was at Versailles, the last time we walked together, and we had stopped, and I was digging little round holes in the road with my parasol. I'm not going to ask you again to marry me, so there is no reason in the world why you should behave differently to me if you have fallen in love with some one else.'
'I'm not in love with any one,' said Lushington sharply.
'Then something you have heard about me has changed you in spite of what you say, and I have a right to know what it is, because I've done nothing I'm ashamed of.'
'I've not heard a word against you,' he answered, almost angrily. 'Why do you imagine such things?'
'Because I'm honest enough to own that your friendship has meant a great deal to me, even at a distance; and as I see that it has broken its neck at some fence or other, I'm natural enough to ask what the jump was like!'
He would not answer. He only looked at her suddenly for an instant, with a slight pinching of the lids, and his blue eyes glittered a little; then he turned away with a displeased air.
'Am I just or not?' Margaret asked, almost sternly.