Had her training been other than that of the typical young woman of the world, she would probably have regarded her relationship to him as at an end; but she had been brought up to the idea that men have to be indulged in their little peccadillos and excused for their excesses, and now, somewhat to her own annoyance, she found herself exonerating him. She was hurt, she was offended, she was jealous, she was disgusted; but she was not completely estranged. She declared to herself with her lips that she could never feel the same to him again; but her heart, by its very sorrows, gave the lie to her passionate mutterings.
She did not have many opportunities of speaking to him during these three days, and she shunned the beginning of what she knew was going to be a serious quarrel. But on the fourth day circumstances threw them together: and then the trouble began.
They had both accepted an invitation to luncheon with Colonel and Mrs. Cavilland; and, Muriel’s presence being the social feature of the occasion, she did not feel that she ought to disappoint her hostess. Nor could she avoid driving to the house in Daniel’s company; and it was only the shortness of the distance that prevented some sort of an outburst.
As it was, she was distant and preoccupied, and Daniel looked at her every now and then, wondering what could be the matter.
Lady Smith-Evered was one of the guests; and the question as to whether the Colonel should take her or Lady Muriel as his partner must have been the subject of much discussion. It had evidently been decided, however, that the daughter of Lord Blair took precedence of the wife of Sir Henry Smith-Evered; and Colonel Cavilland therefore led the former into the dining-room, and to Daniel fell the duty of giving his arm to the latter.
Lady Smith-Evered plainly showed her indignation at this outrage by a mere colonel of Dragoons upon the martial dignity of the Commander-in-Chief; and for much of the meal she hardly spoke a word. Daniel was thus left to look about him; and he observed how gaily Muriel laughed and joked with her partner, and with Captain Purdett upon her other hand.
Snatches of her conversation came to his ears; and he was conscious, as ever, that the things she said in public had no relation to those meant for his private hearing. When she was alone with him she spoke with frankness and sincerity; but to other people she seemed to be striving after an effect, and just now, somehow, he would have liked to have shaken her, even though she made him laugh.
The colonel was talking about the recent discovery at Alexandria of a Greek papyrus, extracts from which had appeared in translation in the Egyptian Gazette.
“It’s a treatise on love,” Colonel Cavilland was saying. “The Greeks were specialists on that subject.”
“Oh, I thought they were general practitioners,” Muriel replied, and was rewarded with a burst of laughter.