The question was delicate and the proof that I was not very sure is
perhaps that I forbore to speak to my pair at once. I watched them a
while--I wondered what they would do. No great harm assuredly; but I was
anxious to see if they were really isolated. Homburg was then a great
resort of the English--the London season took up its tale there toward
the first of August--and I had an idea that in such a company as that
Louisa would naturally know people. It was my impression that she
"cultivated" the English, that she had been much in London and would be
likely to have views in regard to a permanent settlement there. This
supposition was quickened by the sight of Linda's beauty, for I knew
there is no country in which such attractions are more appreciated. You
will see what time I took, and I confess that as I finished my cigar I
thought it all over. There was no good reason in fact why I should have
rushed into Mrs. Pallant's arms. She had not treated me well and we had
never really made it up. Somehow even the circumstance that--after the
first soreness--I was glad to have lost her had never put us quite right
with each other; nor, for herself, had it made her less ashamed of her
heartless behaviour that poor Pallant proved finally no great catch. I
had forgiven her; I hadn't felt it anything but an escape not to have
married a girl who had in her to take back her given word and break a
fellow's heart for mere flesh-pots--or the shallow promise, as it
pitifully turned out, of flesh-pots. Moreover we had met since then--on
the occasion of my former visit to Europe; had looked each other in the
eyes, had pretended to be easy friends and had talked of the wickedness
of the world as composedly as if we were the only just, the only pure. I
knew by that time what she had given out--that I had driven her off by
my insane jealousy before she ever thought of Henry Pallant, before she
had ever seen him. This hadn't been before and couldn't be to-day a
ground of real reunion, especially if you add to it that she knew
perfectly what I thought of her. It seldom ministers to friendship, I