"No. I thought you weren't happy," she said.
"Why did you think that?" he asked, with some surprise.
"Don't you remember that morning in Lincoln's Inn Fields?" she asked.
"Yes," said Ralph, slackening his pace and remembering Katharine and
her engagement, the purple leaves stamped into the path, the white
paper radiant under the electric light, and the hopelessness which
seemed to surround all these things.
"You're right, Mary," he said, with something of an effort, "though I
don't know how you guessed it."
She was silent, hoping that he might tell her the reason of his
unhappiness, for his excuses had not deceived her.
"I was unhappy--very unhappy," he repeated. Some six weeks separated
him from that afternoon when he had sat upon the Embankment watching
his visions dissolve in mist as the waters swam past and the sense of
his desolation still made him shiver. He had not recovered in the
least from that depression. Here was an opportunity for making himself
face it, as he felt that he ought to; for, by this time, no doubt, it
was only a sentimental ghost, better exorcised by ruthless exposure to
such an eye as Mary's, than allowed to underlie all his actions and
thoughts as had been the case ever since he first saw Katharine
Hilbery pouring out tea.
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