A faint smile lifted, in the remembered way, the left corner
of her narrowed lips.
"About my marriage?"
"About your marriage."
She continued to consider him between half-drawn lids. "What
can I say that Mrs. Leath has not already told you?"
"Mrs. Leath has told me nothing whatever but the fact--and
her pleasure in it."
"Well; aren't those the two essential points?"
"The essential points to YOU? I should have thought----"
"Oh, to YOU, I meant," she put in keenly.
He flushed at the retort, but steadied himself and rejoined:
"The essential point to me is, of course, that you should be
doing what's really best for you."
She sat silent, with lowered lashes. At length she
stretched out her arm and took up from the table a little
threadbare Chinese hand-screen. She turned its ebony stem
once or twice between her fingers, and as she did so Darrow
was whimsically struck by the way in which their evanescent
slight romance was symbolized by the fading lines on the
frail silk.
"Do you think my engagement to Mr. Leath not really best for
me?" she asked at length.
Darrow, before answering, waited long enough to get his
words into the tersest shape--not without a sense, as he did
so, of his likeness to the surgeon deliberately poising his
lancet for a clean incision. "I'm not sure," he replied,
"of its being the best thing for either of you.
Pages:
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222