Henry did not answer her; he merely pressed her hand, while he thought how un-English, her action was, and how very kind.  She was certainly the dearest woman he had ever met—­beyond Sabine.

Moravia was not at all discouraged, but continued to rub his hands, first one and then the other, while he remained passive under her touch.

“Sabine is perfectly crushed with all this,” she went on.  “I have just left her.  She does not know what you mean to do, but I am sure I can guess.  You mean to give her back to Mr. Arranstoun—­and it will be much better.  She has always been in love with him, I believe, and would never have agreed to try to arrange for a divorce if she had not been awfully jealous about Daisy Van der Horn.  I remember now telling her quite innocently of the reports about them in Paris before we went to England, and now that I come to think of it, I noticed she was rather spiteful over it at the time.”

Henry did not answer, so she continued, in a frank, matter-of-fact way: 

“You can imagine what a strange character Sabine has when I tell you, in all these years of our intimate friendship she never has told me a word of her story until just now.  She was keeping it all in to herself—­I can’t think why.”

Henry did speak at last, but his words came slowly.  “She wanted to forget, poor little girl, and that was the best way to bury it all out of sight.”

“There you are quite wrong,” returned Moravia, now seated upon her footstool again, very close, with her elbows propped on Henry’s knees, while she still held his hands and intermittently caressed them with her cheek.  “That is the way to keep hurts burning and paining forever, fostering them all in the dark—­it is much better to speak about them and let the sun get in on them and take all their sorrow away.  That is why I would not let you be by yourself now, dear friend, as I suppose one of your reserved countrymen would have done.  I just determined to make you talk about it, and to realize that there are lots of lovely other things to comfort you, and that you are not all alone.”

Henry was strangely touched at her kind common sense; he already felt better and not so utterly crushed out with despair.  He told her how sweet and good she was and what a true, unselfish woman—­but Moravia shook her head.

“I am not a bit; it is purely interested, because I am so awfully fond of you myself.  I love to pet you—­there!” and she laughed softly, so happy to see that she had been able even to make this slight effect, for she saw the color had come back in a measure to his face, and her keen brain told her that this was the right tack to go upon—­not to be too serious or show any sentiment, but just to use a sharp knife and cut round all the wound and then pour honey and balm into it herself.