Miss Benedet stepped back
without speaking.
"God bless me!" said Thorne simply, when his wife had named their guest,
and so left the matter, for Miss Benedet to acknowledge or deny their
earlier meeting.
Mrs. Thorne gave her little coughing laugh.
"Well, you two!" she said with ghastly gayety. "Must I repeat, Henry, that
this is"--
"He is trying to think where he has seen me before," said Helen Benedet.
There was a ring in her voice like that of the stamp-heads on the bare
steel.
"I am wondering if you remember where you saw me before," Thorne
retorted. He did not like the young lady's presence there. He thought it
extraordinary and rather brazen. And he liked still less to be drawn into a
woman's parlance.
Mrs. Thorne sat still, trembling. "Henry, tell her! Speak to her!"
Miss Benedet turned from husband to wife. Her face was very pale. "Ah," she
said, "you knew about me all the time! He has told you everything--and you
called me 'my dear'! Is it easy for you to say such things?"
"Never mind, never mind! What did you wish to say to me? What was it?"
"Give me a moment, please! This alters everything. I must get accustomed to
this before we go any further.
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