Lilian shook her head slowly.
"All right, then. I won't. Now I'll tell you the whole business in a nutshell. My sister's a great woman. She's perfectly mad, but she's a great woman. Only where I'm concerned she's always most monstrously unscrupulous. I'm her religion--always was, but more than ever since I bought that amusing business. She was dying of boredom. It saved her. When I got myself divorced she was absolutely delighted. She had me to herself again. Her jealousy where I'm concerned is ferocious. She can't help it, but it's ferocious. Tigresses aren't in it with her. She was jealous of you, and she'd determined to clear you out. I've perceived that for a long time."
"But why should she be jealous of me? I'm sure I've never----"
"Well, she's damned clever, Isabel is, and she's seen that I'm in love with you. Gone--far gone!"
He spoke with strange detachment, as of another person.
The thud-thud of Lilian's heart appalled her. She blushed down to her neck. Her hand shook. The restaurant and all its inhabitants vanished in a cloud and then slowly reappeared. Her confusion of mind was terrible. She was shocked, outraged, by the negligently brutal candour of the avowal; and at the same time she was thinking: "I'd no idea that any man was as marvellous as this man is, and I don't think there can possibly be another man quite as marvellous anywhere. And his being in love with me is the most ravishing, lovely, tender--tender--tender thing that ever happened to any girl. And, of course, he is in love with me. He's not pretending. He would never pretend...."
She wanted to be unconscious for a little while. She did not know it, but her beautiful face was transfigured by the interplay of shyness, modesty, soft resentment, gratitude, ecstasy and determination. Her head was bowed and she could not raise it. Neither could she utter a single word. She looked divine, and thought she looked either silly or sulky. Mr. Grig glanced aside. A glimpse of paradise had dazzled the eternal youth in him. The waiter bore away the soup-plates.
"Perhaps that's enough about business for the present," said Mr. Grig at length. "Let's talk about something else. But before we start I must just tell you you're the most stylish creature in this restaurant. I was staggered when I came in and saw you. Staggered!"
She did raise her head.
"Why?" she asked with exquisite gentleness.