Mr. Dalrymple strode across the room and wheeled up a chair. "Won't you sit down, Miss Fetherstonhaugh?" he said, looking at her with a little appeal in his still stern face. "You must be tired after your long day."
"Thank you," said she; and she sat down. But she felt incapable of talking—incapable of sitting still, with her hands before her. General conversation of a more comfortable and conventional kind than that which she had interrupted was set going all around her.
The lovers resumed their tête-à-tête in the corner; the chess-players continued their game; Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Hardy, suffering from a very justifiable suspicion that they had been a trifle rude, endeavoured to make themselves particularly entertaining. But she sat silent and miserable with downcast eyes, picking at the embroidery on her dress, and wishing the evening over—this disappointing evening which had counteracted all the brightness and pleasure of the day—so that she could slip away to bed.
"You have had no tea," said Mr. Dalrymple presently, when all the married ladies were absorbed in discussing the merits of their respective cooks. "It came in while you were out of the room. Won't you have some now?"
Grateful for any interruption of the spell of embarrassment which was holding her painfully under his watchful eyes, she thanked him, and rising hastily went over to one of the numerous recesses of that charmingly arranged room, where the evening tea-table usually stood between a curtained archway and a glass door that led into the conservatory.
Of course he followed her. The curtains were looped back so as to permit the glow of lamps and firelight to stream in from the room, and on the other side a full moon shone palely down through a network of flowering shrubs and fern trees. They could hear the conversation of the rest distinctly—particularly Mrs. Hale's share of it. But it was a very retired place.
"You had better sit down," said Mr. Dalrymple, "and let me pour it out for you. Yes—I do it every night for my sister. She, too, likes to have the teapot brought in. But I doubt if it is fit to drink; it has been in half an hour. I thought you were tired and had gone to bed."
"Did you?"
"Yes; I am afraid you are very tired. You ought not to have come back."
"I—I wish I had not," she said, hardly above a whisper, as she took the cup from his hands. She looked into his face for a moment with her timid, troubled eyes, and then looked down hastily and blushed her brightest scarlet.