"An insult?" she said, and her voice was troubled. "No, you and I are friends."
But Callon would have none of these excuses. He had come to the house deliberately to quarrel. He had a great faith in the efficacy of quarrels, given the right type of woman. As Mudge had told Pamela, he knew the tactics of the particular kind of warfare which he waged. To cause a woman some pain, to make her think with regret that in him she had lost a friend; that would fix him in her thoughts. So Callon quarrelled. Millie Stretton could not say a word but he misinterpreted it. Every sentence he cleverly twisted into an offence.
"I will say good-bye," he said, at length, as though he had reached the limits of endurance.
Millie Stretton looked at him with troubled eyes.
"I am so sorry it should end like this," she said piteously. "I don't know why it has."
Callon went out of the room, and closed the door behind him. Then he let himself into the street. Millie Stretton would miss him, he felt sure. Her looks, her last words assured him of that. He would wait now without a movement towards a reconciliation. That must come from her, it would give him in her eyes a reputation for strength. He knew the value of that reputation. He had no doubt, besides, that she would suggest a reconciliation. Other women might not, but Millie--yes. On the whole, Mr. Callon was very well content with his night's work. He had taken, in his way of thinking, a long step. The square was empty, except for the carriages outside Lady Millingham's door. Lionel Callon walked briskly home.
CHAPTER XV
[MR. MUDGE COMES TO THE RESCUE]
Lionel Callon's visit to Millie Stretton bore, however, consequences which had not at all entered into his calculations. He was unaware of the watchers at Lady Millingham's window; he had no knowledge of Pamela's promise to Tony Stretton; no suspicion, therefore, that she was now passionately resolved to keep it in the spirit and the letter. He was even without a thought that his advances towards Millie had at all been remarked upon or their motive discovered. Ignorance lulled him into security. But within a short while a counter-plot was set in train.
The occasion was the first summer meeting on Newmarket Heath. Pamela Mardale seldom missed a race meeting at Newmarket dining the spring and summer. There were the horses, in the first place; she met her friends besides; the heath itself, with its broad expanse and its downs, had for her eyes a beauty of its own; and in addition the private enclosure was separated by the width of the course from the crowd and clamour of the ring. She attended this particular meeting, and after the second race was over she happened to be standing amidst a group of friends within the grove of trees at the back of the paddock. Outside, upon the heath, the air was clear and bright; a light wind blew pleasantly. Here the trees were in bud, and the sunlight, split by the boughs, dappled with light and shadow the glossy coats of the horses as they were led in and out amongst the boles. A mare was led past Pamela, and one of her friends said--