"He is a beast," she informed her husband, tearing up the letter angrily before his eyes in the library, while he watched her with a slavish admiration that increased her fury. "He is nothing but an animal," she added. "He's a—a——"
"Who?" came the question, as though it had been asked before. For Sir George wore a stolid and a patient expression on his kindly face.
"That man LeVallon," she told him. "One of Dr. Fillery's cases I tried to—to help. Now he's written to me——"
George looked up with infinite patience and desire in his kindly gaze.
"Cut him out," he said dryly, as though he was accustomed to such scenes. "Let him rip. Why bother, anyway, with 'patients'?"
And he crossed the room to comfort her, knowing that presently the reaction must make him seem more desirable than he really was....
"Never in my house again," she sighed, as he approached her lovingly, his fingers in his close brown beard. "He is simply a beast—an animal!"
[CHAPTER XXIII]
IT was, perhaps, some cosmic humour in the silent, beautiful stars which planned that Nayan's visit should follow upon the very heels of Lady Gleeson's call. Those vast Intelligences who note the fall of even a feather, watching and guarding the Race so closely that they may be said in human terms to love it, arranged the details possibly, enjoying the result with their careless, sunny laughter. At any rate, Dr. Fillery quickly sent her word, and she came. To lust "N. H." had not reacted. How would it be with love?