"Retract your words or leave the house," he said hoarsely.
And before Mr. Carden-Cox could reply, Daisy burst into a terrified exclamation:—
"Mother! Look at mother!"
Mrs. Browning was in the room. How long she had been there no one could tell. When Daisy first saw her she stood near the door, perfectly still, like a living image of wax in her deep mourning, one hand hanging carelessly over the other on a background of crape, the dark eyes wide-open and fixed. But Daisy's words aroused her, and she came forward.
"Clemence! If I'd guessed—" groaned Mr. Carden-Cox.
He advanced, holding out his hand in a half apologetic manner, muttering something like "regret."
Mrs. Browning gazed beyond and through him. She swept past slowly, and came among her children, laying a hand on Nigel's arm.
"What is it all about?" she asked in her sweet low voice. "I do not understand. Some one can open the door for Mr. Carden-Cox."
Mr. Carden-Cox absolutely went, there and then, without a word of self-excuse, opening the door for himself, bowing to the decision of that fair woman as he would have bowed to the decision of no other human being.
Fulvia gathered her wits together, and rushed after him to the front door.