From the heat of fierce anger Imogen reached a contemptuous coolness. She made no attempt to stay his volubility; she answered, quietly, accurately, with chill interest, all he said. They might really have met for the first time at dinner that night, were it not that Jack's competence was a little feverish, were it not that her own courtesy was a little edged. But the swing from tender sadness to perplexity, to fury, to contempt, was so violent that not until they turned to retrace their steps did a very pertinent question begin to make itself felt. It made itself felt with the sudden leap to fear of that underlying anxiety as to what was happening on the veranda, and the fear lit the question with a lurid, though, as yet, not a revealing flicker. For why had he done it? That was what she asked herself as they faced the moonlight and saw the woods all dark on a background of mystic gold. What fatuous complacency had made him take so much trouble just to show her how little he cared for what she might be feeling, for what he had himself once felt?
Imogen pondered, striding before him with her long, light step, urged now by the inner pressure of fear as to the exchange that her absence had made possible between her mother and Sir Basil. It had been foolish of her to leave him for so long, exposed and helpless. Instinctively her step hastened as she went and, Jack following closely, they almost ran at last, silent and breathing quickly. Imogen had, indeed, the uncanny sensation of being pursued, tracked, kept in sight by her follower. From the last thin screen of branches she emerged, finally, into the grassy clearing.
There was a flicker of white on the veranda. In the shadow of the creepers stood two figures, clasping hands. Her mother and Sir Basil.
Fear beat suddenly, suffocatingly, in Imogen's throat. A tide of humiliation, like the towering of a gigantic wave above her head, seemed to rise and encompass her round about. She had counted too soon upon gladness, upon vengeance. Everything was stripped from her, if—if Jack and her mother had succeeded. With lightning-like rapidity her mind grasped its suspicion. She looked back at Jack. His eyes, too, were fixed on the veranda, and suspicion was struck to certainty by what she read in them. He was tense; he was white; he was triumphant. Too soon triumphant! In another moment the imminence of her terror passed by. The clasp was not that of a plighting. It was over; it denoted some lesser compact, one that meant, perhaps, success for her almost forgotten hope. But in Jack's eye she had read what was her danger.
Imogen paused but for a moment to draw the breath of a mingled relief and realization. Her knowledge was the only weapon left in her hand, and strength, safety, the mere semblance of dignity, lay in its concealment. If he guessed that Sir Basil needed guarding, he should never guess that she did. Already her headlong speed might have jeopardized her secret.
"What a pretty setting for our elderly lovers, isn't it?" she said.
That her voice should slightly tremble was only natural; he must know that even from full unconsciousness such a speech must be for her a forced and painful one.
Jack looked her full in the eye, as steadily as she looked at him.
"Isn't it?" he said.