Durrance was at dinner, too,--good God, Durrance!" he suddenly
broke out. "Most likely he knows like the rest."
It came upon him as something shocking and strangely new that his friend
Durrance, who, as he knew very well, had been wont rather to look up to
him, in all likelihood counted him a thing of scorn. But he heard Ethne
speaking. After all, what did it matter whether Durrance knew, whether
every man knew, from the South Pole to the North, since she, Ethne,
knew?
"And is this all?" she asked.
"Surely it is enough," said he.
"I think not," she answered, and she lowered her voice a little as she
went on. "We agreed, didn't we, that no foolish misunderstandings should
ever come between us? We were to be frank, and to take frankness each
from the other without offence. So be frank with me! Please!" and she
pleaded. "I could, I think, claim it as a right. At all events I ask for
it as I shall never ask for anything else in all my life."
There was a sort of explanation of his act, Harry Feversham remembered;
but it was so futile when compared with the overwhelming consequence.
Ethne had unclenched her hands; the three feathers lay before his eyes
upon the table.
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