The question took him so entirely unawares that, in the slight, involuntary movement he made, he seemed to himself to stagger backward. He was aware of looking blank, while unable to control his features to a non-committal expression. He had the feeling that minutes had gone by before he was able to say:
"It was really of no consequence—"
"Don't say that. It was of great consequence. Any one can see that—now. I was insolent. I knew I had been. You must have been perfectly aware of it all these years; and—I will say it!—I must say it!—you're taking your revenge—very nobly."
He was about to utter something in protest, but she turned away abruptly and sped up the stairs. On the first landing she paused for the briefest instant and looked down.
"Good-by," she faltered. "I must go back to papa. He'll need me. I can't talk any more just now. I'm too bewildered—about everything. Colonel Ashley will arrive in a day or two, and after I've seen him I shall be a little clearer as to what I think; and—and then—I shall see you again."
He continued to stand gazing up the stairway long after he had heard her close the door of Guion's room behind her.
XI
t was not difficult for Davenant to ascribe his lightness of heart, on leaving Tory Hill, to satisfaction in getting rid of his superfluous money, since he had some reason to fear that the possession of it was no great blessing. To a man with little instinct for luxury and no spending tastes, twenty or thirty thousand dollars a year was an income far outstripping his needs. It was not, however, in excess of his desires, for he would gladly have set up an establishment and cut a dash if he had known how. He admired the grand style in living, not so much as a matter of display, because presumably it stood for all sorts of mysterious refinements for which he possessed the yearning without the initiation. The highest flight he could take by his own unaided efforts was in engaging the best suite of rooms in the best hotel, when he was quite content with his dingy old lodgings; in driving in taxicabs, when the tram-car would have suited him just as well, and ordering champagne, when he would have preferred some commoner beverage. Fully aware of the insufficiency of this method of reaching a higher standard, he practised it only because it offered the readiest means he could find of straining upward. He was sure that with a wife who knew the arts of elegance to lead the way his scent for following would be keen enough; but between him and the acquisition of this treasure there lay the memory of the haughty young creature who had, in the metaphor with which he was most familiar, "turned him down."