Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/110

96 "But you didn't know it was he?"

"I never dreamed—and mamma never told me."

Jean thought a moment. "She was afraid. You see I'm not."

Paul Beever more pitifully wondered; he repeated again the word she had left ringing in his ears. She's 'engaged'?"

"So she informed me."

His little eyes rested on her with a stupefaction so candid as almost to amount to a challenge; then they moved away, far away, and he stood lost in what he felt. She came, tenderly, nearer to him, and they turned back to her: on which he saw they were filled with the tears that another failure she knew of had no power to draw to them. "It's awfully odd!" he said.

"I've had to hurt you," she replied. "I'm very sorry for you."

"Oh, don't mind it!" Paul smiled.

"These are things for you to hear of—straight."

"From her? Ah, I don't want to do that! You see, of course, I shan't say anything." And he covered, for an instant, working it clumsily, one of his little eyes with the base of one of his big thumbs.