There wasn't in me then, and there isn't in me now when I think of it,
any shred of anger with her. (That, of course is the danger, and, all
the hard remorseless analysis in the world won't alter it.) I may as
well confess the truth; her pleadings had stirred me to vivid sympathy
with her. I felt, if it conveys anything to say so, that deep down
behind all her treachery she was as true and straight as Terry himself.
And yet I wasn't on her side. I didn't agree with her. I hardly knew how
much I disagreed until I began to talk about it. I remember how, as I
talked, the blazing edge of the shadow crept towards us till we were in
full sunlight--so hot that we had to move back. And over in another
garden not far away there sounded the sharp plick-plock of
crocquet-balls--delicious, enchanting accompaniment.
She might or might not leave Geoffrey, I began; that was, in a sense,
her own affair. But the question of Terry was different--it was my
affair, anybody's affair, as much as hers. Did she, I asked her plainly,
think she was going to run straightway from Geoffrey to Terry?