Her face grew warm under his touch, and she trembled and drew back. Suppose that girl in the gallery had seen him? It would be all over Newnham. And the servants might come in at any time, or Cousin Mary; and Mr. Colville might walk into the gallery unannounced, as he was accustomed to do. Oh, it would be dreadful to be caught kissing like a housemaid!
'And you have been working hard all this time?' she said, when she had got the little oak table that stood in the window well between them.
'Yes, I have been working pretty well. I shouldn't have done a stroke if you hadn't given me something to work for. I should have thrown it all up, and gone down.'
'Oh, it would never have done for you to have gone down—you who are expected to bring so much credit to the college! It would have disappointed everybody, and your own people most. What would your people have said?'
'They would have been disappointed—and—and I think my mother would have been sorry. She is such a tender, indulgent mother; she has never refused me anything. She has always stood between me and my father, and covered up all my shortcomings, but she couldn't have covered up this, and—and there would have been a row. Yes, I think it would have disappointed her.'
His eyes were tender and softened as he spoke of his mother, and Lucy thought as she stood there of that dreadful scene when she found Eric on his knees beside the couch, and she wondered how his mother would have covered up that.
She looked up at the warm, tender face of the man bending over her—he had got round the table—and with a sudden terror she saw the mark on his throat—he had not covered it; he wore no scarf to-day, and his collar was open, and the purple mark was visible on the white skin.
He saw her eyes travel to—not to his face; they stopped short at his throat, and a white look of terror came into them.
'Yes,' he said, reading her thoughts—her transparent thoughts—'she would have covered up this, but it would have broken her heart.'
He drew his collar up round his throat as he spoke and Lucy's eyes filled with tears.