“Look here,” she said, “you remember that letter you wrote me from Manchester? You enclosed it in Helen’s letter. _Do_ you remember it?” “Yes,” he said. “What did you mean by it?” He seemed puzzled. “Well, it’s a long time ago, and I scarcely remember what it was like.... I dare say it was rather fatuously clever: I used to think myself a dab hand at letter-writing in those days.” That was as reasonable an explanation as she could have expected. She switched on to another line of questioning. “You remember that time we were on the balcony at the Forest Hotel--just before the others came up?” “Yes.” “You--I believe--you were trying to apologize to me--for something. Now, what was it?” He seemed embarrassed as well as puzzled. “Well,” he began hesitatingly, “of course I may have been wrong--probably I was--but I always understood--I mean I had gathered that--that there had been a sort of--er, misunderstanding between us.” “Why should you apologize for that?” “Well, if there had been one it might have been my own fault. So I thought I’d apologize----” “From whom did you gather there had been a misunderstanding?” “I believe it was Helen who----” “Oh, I see.” He emboldened himself to start a cross-examination of her. “May I ask if there ever was a misunderstanding?” he said. Catherine lied, splendidly, regally, with magnificent disdain. It was clearly an opportunity to demonstrate (to herself chiefly) how completely the tables had been turned. “I’m sure I don’t know what the misunderstanding you’ve been talking about is or was supposed to be. But so far as I am aware there never was such a thing.” He tried to grasp all the significations of this. Then he resumed the enquiry. “Why have you been asking me about these things?” “Merely curiosity,” she replied, with an undercurrent of implication which said: “Do you suppose for one moment that my reasons could have been any other than those of mere curiosity?” Yet he wilfully ignored the implication. All day in the stuffy accountant’s office in Leadenhall Street he kept pausing in his work and treating himself to the riotous luxury of the thought: “I don’t believe it _was_ curiosity. Why should she have asked about that letter? And besides, Helen sticks to it she was in love with me in those days! After all, it’s extremely unlikely it was only curiosity.... Of course, she had to say it was. She couldn’t easily have said anything else. At least ...”