That was rather a long speech for Eben Tollman, and as he finished Conscience felt the glances of both men upon her, awaiting her confirmation.
She smiled and Stuart detected no flaw in the seeming genuineness of her cordiality.
"We know he likes the place," she announced in tones of whimsical bantering, "and if he refuses it must mean that he doesn't think much of the people."
Stuart was so entirely beguiled that his reply came with instant repudiation of such a construction.
"When to-morrow's train arrives," he declared, "I will be a passenger, unless an indignant audience lynches me to-night."
They had meant to meet surreptitiously, mused Eben Tollman, and being thwarted, they had juggled their conversation into an exaggeration of innocence. Conscience's face during that first unguarded moment in the dining-room had mirrored a terror which could have had no other origin than a guilty love. His own course of conduct was clear. He must, no matter how it tried his soul, conceal every intimation of suspicion. The geniality which had astonished them both must continue with a convincing semblance of genuineness. Out of a pathetic blindness of attitude he must see, eagle-eyed.
But Conscience, as they drove homeward, was reflecting upon the frequent miscarriage of kindness. Her husband had planned for her a delightful surprise and his well-meaning gift had been—a crisis.
Stuart sat that night in the gallery of the Garrick theater with emotions strangely confused.
Below him and about him was such an audience as characterizes those towns which are frequently used as experimental stations for the drama. It regarded itself as sophisticated in matters theatrical and was keenly alive to the fact that it sat as a jury which must not be too provincially ready of praise.