She raised her eyes entreatingly to Darrow’s, and read in them the forbearance of the man resigned to the discussion of non-existent problems.
“I’ll do whatever you want me to,” he said; “but I don’t yet know what it is.”
His smile seemed to charge her with inconsequence, and the prick to her pride made her continue: “After all, it’s not so unnatural that Owen, knowing you and Sophy to be almost strangers, should wonder what you were saying to each other when he saw you talking together.”
She felt a warning tremor as she spoke, as though some instinct deeper than reason surged up in defense of its treasure. But Darrow’s face was unstirred save by the flit of his half-amused smile.
“Well, my dear–and couldn’t you have told him?” “I?” she faltered out through her blush.
“You seem to forget, one and all of you, the position you put me in when I came down here: your appeal to me to see Owen through, your assurance to him that I would, Madame de Chantelle’s attempt to win me over; and most of all, my own sense of the fact you’ve just recalled to me: the importance, for both of us, that Owen should like me. It seemed to me that the first thing to do was to get as much light as I could on the whole situation; and the obvious way of doing it was to try to know Miss Viner better. Of course I’ve talked with her alone–I’ve talked with her as often as I could. I’ve tried my best to find out if you were right in encouraging Owen to marry her.”
She listened with a growing sense of reassurance, struggling to separate the abstract sense of his words from the persuasion in which his eyes and voice enveloped them.
“I see-I do see,” she murmured.
“You must see, also, that I could hardly say this to Owen without offending him still more, and perhaps increasing the breach between Miss Viner and himself. What sort of figure should I cut if I told him I’d been trying to find out if he’d made a proper choice? In any case, it’s none of my business to offer an explanation of what she justly says doesn’t need one. If she declines to speak, it’s obviously on the ground that Owen’s insinuations are absurd; and that surely pledges me to silence.”
“Yes, yes! I see,” Anna repeated. “But I don’t want you to explain anything to Owen.”
“You haven’t yet told me what you do want.”
She hesitated, conscious of the difficulty of justifying her request; then: “I want you to speak to Sophy,” she said.
Darrow broke into an incredulous laugh. “Considering what my previous attempts have resulted in—-!”
She raised her eyes quickly. “They haven’t, at least, resulted in your liking her less, in your thinking less well of her than you’ve told me?”
She fancied he frowned a little. “I wonder why you go back to that?”
“I want to be sure-I owe it to Owen. Won’t you tell me the exact impression she’s produced on you?”
“I have told you-I like Miss Viner.”
“Do you still believe she’s in love with Owen?”
“There was nothing in our short talks to throw any particular light on that.”
“You still believe, though, that there’s no reason why he shouldn’t marry her?”
Again he betrayed a restrained impatience. “How can I answer that without knowing her reasons for breaking with him?”
“That’s just what I want you to find out from her.”
“And why in the world should she tell me?”
“Because, whatever grievance she has against Owen, she can certainly have none against me. She can’t want to have Owen connect me in his mind with this wretched quarrel; and she must see that he will until he’s convinced you’ve had no share in it.”
Darrow’s elbow dropped from the mantel-piece and he took a restless step or two across the room. Then he halted before her.
“Why can’t you tell her this yourself?”
“Don’t you see?”
He eyed her intently, and she pressed on: “You must have guessed that Owen’s jealous of you.”
“Jealous of me?” The blood flew up under his brown skin.