"Of course, if you don't wish it—if it will be troubling you too much—" he began, with his old fierce abruptness, drawing himself together.
"It is not that," said she, looking at her fan. "But now I know why you have stayed away for five weeks."
"Why I have stayed away—oh! I understand. But I told you they were living alone, did I not? Therefore I have never been into their house—it is quite impossible for me to have the pleasure of their society."
"Then you want me to take them up, so that you can have it here? Is that it?"
The little man was looking so ferocious, and his departure from her side appeared so imminent, that she changed her tone quickly after putting this question. "Never mind," she said, laying her jewelled fingers on his coat sleeve for a moment, "I will not be jealous—at least I will try not to be. I will go and call on them to-morrow, and as soon as they have called on me I will ask them to one of my Fridays. Will that do?"
"I don't wish you for a moment to do what would be at all unpleasant to yourself," he said, still in a hurt, blunt tone, but visibly softening.
"It won't be unpleasant to me," she said sentimentally, "if it will please you."
And Paul went home at midnight, well satisfied with what he had done, believing that a woman so "awfully kind" as Mrs. Aarons would be a shield and buckler to those defenceless girls.