KITTY did not know whether it was by chance or by design that she never found herself for a moment alone with Charlie. His tact was exquisite.
He remained kindly, sympathetic, pleasant and amiable.
No one could have guessed that they had ever been more than acquaintances.
But one afternoon when she was lying on a sofa outside her room reading he passed along the verandah and stopped.
"What is that you're reading?" he asked.
"A book."
She looked at him with irony.
He smiled.
"Dorothy's gone to a garden-party at Government House."
"I know.
Why haven't you gone too?"
"I didn't feel I could face it and I thought I'd come back and keep your company.
The car's outside, would you like to come for a drive round the island?"
"No, thank you."
He sat down on the foot of the sofa on which she lay.
"We haven't had the chance of a talk by ourselves since you got here."
She looked straight into his eyes with cool insolence.
"Do you think we have anything to say to one another?"
"Volumes."
She shifted her feet so that she should not touch him.
"Are you still angry with me?" he asked, the shadow of a smile on his lips and his eyes melting.
"Not a bit," she laughed.
"I don't think you'd laugh if you weren't."
"You're mistaken; I despise you much too much to be angry with you."
He was unruffled.
"I think you're rather hard on me.
Looking back calmly, don't you honestly think I was right?"
"From your standpoint."
"Now that you know Dorothy, you must admit she's rather nice?"
"Of course.
I shall always be grateful for her great kindness to me."
"She's one in a thousand.
I should never have had a moment's peace if we'd bolted.
It would have been a rotten trick to play on her.
And after all I had to think of my children; it would have been an awful handicap for them."
For a minute she held him in her reflective gaze.
She felt completely mistress of the situation.
"I've watched you very carefully during the week I've been here. I've come to the conclusion that you really are fond of Dorothy.
I should never have thought you capable of it."
"I told you I was fond of her.
I wouldn't do anything to cause her a moment's uneasiness.
She's the best wife a man ever had."
"Have you ever thought that you owed her any loyalty?"
"What the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve for," he smiled.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"You're despicable."
"I'm human.
I don't know why you should think me such a cad because I fell head over ears in love with you.
I didn't particularly want to, you know."
It gave her a little twist of the heart-strings to hear him say that.