But after he had reached his seat the truth flashed on me. I was in the way; I was de trop. I had done part of my work in being the pretext for Mrs. Brokenshire's visit; now I ought, tactfully, to absent myself. I needn't go far; I needn't go for long. There was an alcove at the end of the room where one could be out of sight; there was also the corridor leading to the house. I could easily make an excuse; I could get up and move without an excuse of any kind. But I sat.
I hated myself; I despised myself; but I sat. I drank my tea without knowing it; I ate my cake without tasting it—and I sat.
The talk between my companions grew more fitful. Silence was easier for them—silence and that dumb interchange of looks which had the sympathy of something within myself. I knew that in their eyes I was a nuisance, a thing to be got rid of. I was so in my own—but I went on eating and drinking stolidly—and sat.
It was in my mind that this was my chance to be avenged on Howard Brokenshire; but I didn't want my vengeance that way. I have to confess that I was so poor-spirited as to have little or no animosity against him. I could see how easy it was for him to think of me as an adventuress. I wanted to convince and convert him, but not to make him suffer. If in any sense I could be called the guardian of his interests I would rather have been true to the trust than not. As I sat, therefore, gulping down my tea as if I relished it, it was partly because of my protective instinct toward the exquisite creature before me who might not know how to protect herself—and partly because I couldn't help it. Mr. Grainger could order me to go, but until he did I meant to go on eating.
Probably because of the insistence of my presence Mrs. Brokenshire felt obliged to begin to talk again. I did my best not to listen, but fragments of her sentences came to me.
"My mother spent a few weeks with us in August. I—I don't think she and—and Mr. Brokenshire get on so well."
Almost for the first time he was interested in what she said rather than in her.
"What's the trouble?"
"Oh, I don't know—the whole thing." A long pause ensued, during which their eyes rested on each other in mute questioning. "She's changed, mamma is."
"Changed in what way?"