Linda spoke first. ‘So very glad to meet you. I have this moment called at Miller’s and found you absent. We can have our chat out of doors.’
She was serenely void of conscience. It was probably a mere physical sensation of antagonism that hindered Mrs. Thorne from offering poor magnificent Dinah her hand.
‘To begin with, I must unburthen my soul by confession.’ So she ran on gaily. ‘My visit was, really and truly, to your husband.’
Not a change of colour, not a shade of expression passed across the face of Gaston’s wife. She possessed the self-preserving instincts of many weaker creatures, and of her sex in general; could conceal, feign, dissemble—except under the eyes, and at the voice of him she loved.
‘The other night, at sea, just before the steamer stopped at Alderney, you must know that he and I made a bet, a very foolish one.’ Linda had the grace to redden as she remembered what that bet was about. ‘And Mr. Arbuthnot won. He wins in everything, it seems?’
A compliment may have been implied by the tone. It fell dead on Dinah Arbuthnot’s prejudiced ears.
‘And so I thought I would run up this afternoon to discharge my debt. I deposited the stakes on a corner of your mantelpiece. If you see Mr. Arbuthnot before I do, tell him, from me, that he has won,—that I am bankrupt! You will forgive me for invading your sitting-room, without leave, will you not?’
Still Dinah did not speak. Her eyes glowed, deepened until their soft English hazel seemed turned to black.
‘I have known you long enough—we are sufficiently intimate,’ went on Linda, feeling that she was being forced into the fencing attitude—‘for me to venture on such a liberty?’