Some one entered, and she opened her eyes on Maurice. He had worked all the afternoon. The sitter was gone. He beamed with conscious merit, deserving her approbation, quite like a child let loose from school; smiling and radiant.
He came to her as she lay sunken in the chair, leaned to her for a kiss, and paused, meeting the hard fixed look of her eyes.
“What is the matter, dearest?” he asked, and his heart began to shake.
“Why did you tell papa that lie?”
He hardly understood the question, but her tone struck through him like a knife. “What lie?”
“You told him that I talked to Lady Angela of my dislike for his article.”
“Didn’t you?” Maurice asked feebly, for his brain was whirling. The added baseness did not urge her voice from its horrible, icy calm.
“I, Maurice? When you—you only talked to her of it?”
“Felicia, I swear you have mistaken it. Don’t kill me in looking like that. Let me think. I told him—yes—I had to explain how it happened—your anger towards Angela, your sending her away. I muddled into the whole thing. I suppose I let him think that you had talked. How could I tell him that it was I? For Heaven’s sake, be merely just, darling,—Felicia,—how could I tell him that, when I am half responsible for his publishing it? You remember the mess I got into to please you?”
“To please me? You are a coward, Maurice.” She turned her eyes from him.