Chesney turned on her.
"Throwing a nubbin to the calf to catch the cow, as you say in Virginia, eh?" he said brutally. She flushed with such crimson intensity that the tears sprang to her eyes. In a ringing voice she cried out, as she saw him eyeing the flush jeeringly:
"It's for you ... for you that I am blushing!"
Without another look at him, she took up the toy and went out of the room.
She was so pale in her gown of white crêpe when she came downstairs, dressed for dinner, that he said, after eyeing her discontentedly:
"Good Lord! You look like the family ghost. Can't you stick on a bit of rouge?"
"No. I don't like rouge."
His eyes fixed on the chaplet of ivy leaves in her shaded hair.
"I suppose that garland is to complete the impression of an Iphigenia about to be sacrificed, eh?"
"Cecil...." she said it earnestly, impressively. "Don't let's quarrel to-night."