XIII

Summary

I HAD felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant—by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. “It would have been a short cut,” I said, “and even more strikingly perhaps—to do it justice—a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure—wouldn't it?—from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you,” I went on, “I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I’m not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. ‘I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired’—isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you’ve veraciously to give me?” We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out.

“The beauty of it would be great!”

I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. “Do you imagine he would have told me?”

It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. “Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed”—I piled it up—“your saying to him: ‘We’re all noticing that you’re so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we’ve different views of the miracle’!”

I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it—by that very fact—sufficed to my confidence. “I’ve not spoken to a creature.”