"Do not!" she cried breathlessly, passionately. "As if I could dream—What can you think of me, to imagine that I would for a moment—"
She broke from him and ran towards the door, sobbing, with her handkerchief to her eyes. In three strides he was there before her, cutting off her retreat; so she swung back into the room, cast herself on the floor beside a sofa, and throwing up her arms, plunged her head down between them into the depths of a large cushion, which smothered cries that would otherwise have been shrieks. She abandoned all effort to control herself, except the effort to hide, which was futile.
Guthrie Carey's first feeling was of alarm, lest anyone should hear and come in to see what was the matter; he felt like wanting to guard the door. But in a minute or two his soft heart was so worked upon by the spectacle before him that he could think of nothing else. However little he might want to marry Mary Pennycuick, he was not going to be answerable for this sort of thing; so he marched resolutely to the sofa, and stooped to lift the convulsed creature bodily into his arms.
He might as well have tried to grasp a sleeping porcupine.
"How dare you?" she cried shrilly, whirling to her feet, dilating like a hooded snake before his astonished eyes. "How dare you touch me?" He was too cowed to answer, and she stood a moment, all fire and fury, glaring at him, her tear-ravaged face distorted, her hands clenched; then she whirled out of the room, and this time he made no effort to stop her.
He dropped back on the sofa, and said to himself helplessly:
"Well, I'm blowed!"
There was stillness for some time. This part of the house seemed quite empty, save for one buzzing fly, which he or Mary had let in. The little housekeeper was very particular about flies in summer, every window and chimney-opening being wire-netted, every door labelled with a printed request to the user to shut it; and his dazed mind occupied itself with the idea of how this insect would have distressed her if she had not had so much else to think of. He had an impulse to hunt it, for her sake, through the green-shadowed space in which it careered in long tacks with such energy and noise; but, standing up, he was seized with a stronger impulse to leave the house forthwith, and everything in it. He wanted liberty to consider his position and further proceedings before he faced the family.
As he approached the door, it was opened from without. Deb stood on the threshold, pale, proud, with tight lips and sombre eyes. She bowed to him as only she could bow to a person she was offended with.
"Would you kindly see my father in his office, Mr Carey?" she inquired, with stony formality. "He wishes to speak to you."