"See in him!"
She commenced sipping her coffee. She looked extraordinarily like Terry used to do years ago, when she was a little lass and had been naughty, and had come reluctantly to ask pardon. He thought that if he went on talking he might make it easier for her.
"You'll wonder why I, who never knew you until to-day, should have taken upon myself to broach this subject."
"I don't wonder," she headed him off. "I know. Terry's my friend. Her father was determined to send somebody, so she worked things in order that you might be sent. She thought that you would be the kindest person."
"She thought that!" Tabs was a little taken back by her assertion; it seemed to pledge him to kindness before he had learnt whether kindness was required or deserved. It made him in a sense her partisan, when he ought to have been impartial.
"I think I can be trusted to be kind," he said; "but you must remember that I've got to be kind all round. I must be kind to Adair's wife and to his children. If this goes much further it will spell tragedy for them."
She shrugged her shoulders and laughed without mirth. "Adair's wife should have remembered to be kind to herself. If a woman can't keep her husband, she never deserved to have won him. And Adair
—he's the easiest man to keep in the world; far too easy to be exciting. If she doesn't lose him to me, she'll lose him to some one else, unless——" And then she surprised him, "But she won't lose him to me, for I don't want him."
Tabs sighed with relief and lit himself a cigarette. "Then that's settled. If you don't want him, the trouble's ended, and I think Sir Tobias and all of us owe you an apology."
Again she laughed. This time some of her old mischief had come back. "You go too fast, Lord Taborley. I shouldn't advise any of you to apologize to me yet. It's true that I don't want him for keeps, but——"