“To know your position—­our position; what you had to do with it all.”

“What is the good?  What difference can it make?”

“It’s the doubt,” she said—­“the doubt.  I thought you might like to explain.”

“To explain?  Good Lord! what have I to explain?  Is it not all settled, all clear?  My dear child, let us be reasonable, let us forget; it’s the only way.”

There was less of anger in his voice, but if Eve could have seen his eyes in the firelight, she might have noticed that they were very bright, and their pupils were contracted to hard, iridescent points.

“How can it be settled,” she asked wearily, “while there is this shadow of doubt?  And to forget—­Heaven knows I have tried!”

Dick shrugged his shoulders tolerantly.

“What do you want me to say?—­to explain?”

“Could you not have warned him, Dick?  Did you not see it coming?  She, that woman, was she not your model?  Did he not meet her at your studio?  Was not that the beginning of it all?  Ah, can you say that you were not to blame?”

She spoke fast, following question with question, as if she anticipated the answer with mingled feelings of hope and fear, and there was more of entreaty than of denunciation in her last words.

“It’s such an old story,” he rejoined, with an air of feeble protest.  “How could I foresee what would happen?  And,” he added, hardening himself, “they did not meet for the first time at my studio; on the contrary, it was he who brought her to me, and I suspected nothing.  What more can I say?  Surely it is all plain enough!”

Eve sighed.  It seemed to her husband that she was on the whole disappointed, and he felt that, while he was about it, he might have given himself a freer hand, and made himself emerge, not only without a stain upon his character—­the expression occurred to him with a kind of familiar mockery—­but with beaten drums and flying colours.

He reflected that this was another example of the folly of attempting to economize.  At the same time he was gently thrilled by what he owned to himself was a not ignoble emotion:  that sigh seemed to speak so naturally and pathetically of disillusionment, it was such a simple little confession of a damaged ideal.  It did not occur to him to suspect that the character of which his wife had formed too proudly high an estimate was his own.

“Don’t you think you might trust me?” he said presently in a milder, almost paternal tone, magnanimously prepared for a charming display of penitence, which it would be his duty rather to encourage than to deprecate.

“To trust you?” replied Eve quickly.  “Haven’t I the appearance of trusting you?  Don’t I accept your explanations?”

It was Lightmark’s turn to sigh.  His wife moved away, with an air of dismissing the subject.

“It is quite dark; it must be time to dress for dinner.  Please turn on the light.”  Then she added as she left the room, without waiting for an answer:  “And you, do you find it so easy to forget?”