“Of my coming to Washington.”
She looked down at her muff, and he saw her hands stir in it uneasily.
“Well—?”
“Well—yes,” she said.
“You were afraid? You knew—?”
“Yes: I knew …”
“Well, then?” he insisted.
“Well, then: this is better, isn’t it?” she returned with a long questioning sigh.
“Better—?”
“We shall hurt others less. Isn’t it, after all, what you always wanted?”
“To have you here, you mean—in reach and yet out of reach? To meet you in this way, on the sly? It’s the very reverse of what I want. I told you the other day what I wanted.”
She hesitated. “And you still think this—worse?”
“A thousand times!” He