"It isn't that exactly. Of course it is nicer if you go; though I wouldn't take you if you don't like it. But——"
"But what, dear?"
"I think I'd rather not to-night. I don't know that I am quite strong enough." Then he didn't say another word to press her,—only begging that she would not go to the dinner either if she were not well. But she was quite well, and she did go to the dinner.
Again she had meant to tell him why she would not go to Mrs. Jones's ball, but had been unable. Jack De Baron would be there, and would want to know why she would not waltz. And Adelaide Houghton would tease her about it, very likely before him. She had always waltzed with him, and could not now refuse without some reason. So she gave up her ball, sending word to say that she was not very well. "I shouldn't at all wonder if he has kept her at home because he's afraid of you," said Mrs. Houghton to her cousin.
Late in the following afternoon, before her husband had come home from his club, she told her father the whole story of her interview with Miss Mildmay. "What a tiger," he said, when he had heard it. "I have heard of women like that before, but I have never believed in them."
"You don't think she will tell him?"
"What matter if she does? What astonishes me most is that a woman should be so unwomanly as to fight for a man in such a way as that. It is the sort of thing that men used to do. 'You must give up your claim to that lady, or else you must fight me.' Now she comes forward and says that she will fight you."
"But, papa, I have no claim."
"Nor probably has she?"
"No; I'm sure she has not. But what does that matter? The horrid thing is that she should say all this to me. I told her that she couldn't know that I was married."