I see--I see!" I went on, conscious, with the full
turn of the wheel, of my great delusion, my false view of the poor
man's attitude. What I saw, though I couldn't say it, was that his
wife hadn't thought him worth enlightening. This struck me as
strange for a woman who had thought him worth marrying. At last I
explained it by the reflexion that she couldn't possibly have
married him for his understanding. She had married him for
something else.
He was to some extent enlightened now, but he was even more
astonished, more disconcerted: he took a moment to compare my
story with his quickened memories. The result of his meditation
was his presently saying with a good deal of rather feeble form:
"This is the first I hear of what you allude to. I think you must
be mistaken as to Mrs. Drayton Deane's having had any unmentioned,
and still less any unmentionable, knowledge of Hugh Vereker. She'd
certainly have wished it--should it have borne on his literary
character--to be used."
"It was used. She used it herself. She told me with her own lips
that she 'lived' on it."
I had no sooner spoken than I repented of my words; he grew so pale
that I felt as if I had struck him. "Ah, 'lived'-- !" he murmured,
turning short away from me.
My compunction was real; I laid my hand on his shoulder.
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