In it his pride met an antagonist that was worthy of it. And he
went on:
"Are you judging me by this summer?"
He paused.
"Go on," she said.
He could not tell by her voice what she was feeling, thinking.
Expression seemed to be withdrawn from it, perhaps deliberately.
"This summer something has come between us, a cloud has come between
us. I scarcely know when I first noticed it, when it came. But I have
felt it, and you have felt it."
"Yes."
"It might, perhaps, have arisen from the fact of my suspicion who
Ruffo was, a suspicion that lately became a certainty. My suspicion,
and latterly my knowledge, no doubt changed my manner--made me
anxious, perhaps, uneasy, made me watchful, made me often seem very
strange to you. That alone might have caused a difference in our
relations. But I think there was something else."
"Yes, there was something else."
"And I think, I feel sure now, that it was something to do with Vere.
I was, I became deeply interested in Vere--interested in a new way.
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