implied invitation to him to judge, if he spoke of predicaments, of
how much comfort she had in hers. For him indeed was no comfort
even in complaint, since every allusion to what had befallen them
but made the author of their trouble more present. Acton Hague was
between them--that was the essence of the matter, and never so much
between them as when they were face to face. Then Stransom, while
still wanting to banish him, had the strangest sense of striving
for an ease that would involve having accepted him. Deeply
disconcerted by what he knew, he was still worse tormented by
really not knowing. Perfectly aware that it would have been
horribly vulgar to abuse his old friend or to tell his companion
the story of their quarrel, it yet vexed him that her depth of
reserve should give him no opening and should have the effect of a
magnanimity greater even than his own.

He challenged himself, denounced himself, asked himself if he were
in love with her that he should care so much what adventures she
had had. He had never for a moment allowed he was in love with
her; therefore nothing could have surprised him more than to
discover he was jealous. What but jealousy could give a man that
sore contentious wish for the detail of what would make him suffer?
Well enough he knew indeed that he should never have it from the
only person who to-day could give it to him. She let him press her
with his sombre eyes, only smiling at him with an exquisite mercy
and breathing equally little the word that would expose her secret
and the word that would appear to deny his literal right to
bitterness. She told nothing, she judged nothing; she accepted
everything but the possibility of her return to the old symbols.
Stransom divined that for her too they had been vividly individual,
had stood for particular hours or particular attributes--particular