"
"And the next day," he declared, in an aggrieved tone, "I heard that you
were engaged to Caroom. You treated me shamefully."
"These reminiscences," she declared, "are really sweet, but you are most
ungrateful. I was really almost too kind to you. They were all
fearfully anxious to get me married, because Dumesnil always used to say
that my complexion would give out in a year or two, and I wasted no end
of time upon you, who were perfectly hopeless as a husband. After all,
though, I believe it paid. It used to annoy Caroom so much, and I
believe he proposed to me long before he meant to so as to get rid of
you."
"I," Arranmore remarked, "was the victim."
She sat up with eyes suddenly bright.
"Upon my word," she declared, "I have an idea. It is the most charming
and flattering thing, and it never occurred to me before. After all, it
was not eccentricity which caused you to throw up your work at the
Bar--and disappear. It was your hopeless devotion to me. Don't
disappoint me now by denying it. Please don't! It was the announcement
of my engagement, wasn't it?"
"And it has taken you all these years to find it out?
"I was shockingly obtuse," she murmured.
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