“Reginald, I think you have taken leave of your senses.”
“I see one thing very plainly,” he continued, walking by her side to the edge of the lawn, “and that is, that I shall have to stay here much longer than I intended, to rehabilitate you in the good opinion of society. So be prepared to enact with me in public the part of a most united happy couple. Do you understand?” he said, throwing the end of his cigar among the laurel bushes and coming to a full stop. “I will accompany you everywhere, carry your fans, shawls, bouquets, and other loose paraphernalia, and you”—very bitterly—“must assume a certain amount of interest and gratitude in return for my devoted solicitude. It will only be for a short time, but I see that it is an imperative though disagreeable necessity.”
So saying, he turned abruptly away down a side walk, leaving Alice with tears of mortification smarting in her eyes.
CHAPTER X.
GEOFFREY MANŒUVRES.
An hour later Reginald made his appearance in the library, where he found all the party assembled except Alice. Seeing him look round the room, Helen volunteered to tell him that she had gone to see a sick girl.
“What, at this time of night?”
“She went nearly an hour ago. She insisted on going, as she had not been to see Lucy Summers for some days. Alice has been so good to her all the summer—she is dying of consumption, poor girl.”
“It is quite time that Alice was home,” said her husband with authority. “Half-past seven!” walking to the window and looking at his watch.
“Geoffrey promised to fetch her. You ought to start, Geoff,” said Helen. “You know that this is market-night, and her abject fear of drunken men is no secret.”
“She need not go as far as the road for them,” remarked Reginald. “Just now I met an under-gardener endeavouring to walk up both sides of the avenue at once.”