"Maisie!" The word had slipped out. It didn't matter. It mattered so little that he repeated the indiscretion. "Maisie, you mustn't break your heart like that. No one thinks ill of you and you are wanted. You're wanted most awfully. Heaps of people want you."
The shoulders ceased to heave for a fraction of a second, but her face still refused to turn. "Who-oo—who wants me?" Her voice reached him choked with tears and muffled.
Tabs frowned. The question was a poser. Who did want her? He was blessed if he knew. There must be people who wanted her—Adair, for instance. But the mention of Adair would provide her with a reason for a new outburst. There was only one thing to say under the circumstances, so he said it. "I do."
She lay so still that she might have been dead. It was frightening, this sudden silence after such a storm of emotion. It was so frightening that he had to say something more to prove to himself that she could hear. "You're beautiful. You're so gay when you're not crying. I don't think any man could prevent himself from wanting you." And then desperately, in a last effort, "You're most tremendously charming."
Her face never stirred from the cushions, but he was aware that surreptitiously his borrowed handkerchief was being employed industriously.
He had just time to compose his features before a tear-wet eye blinked up at him. It was an eye eloquent with gratitude and babyishly blue. "You're a dear," a small voice whispered.
VI
He had been called many things from time to time, but never before "a dear." To be called "a dear" by a beautiful woman was an entirely new sensation for him. It made him distinctly uncomfortable—almost ashamed. A gift of this sort, even though it hasn't been desired, puts the recipient under an obligation. When once a woman has dubbed a man "a dear," she expects him to live up to the part she has assigned him. Tabs hoped that she hadn't been as sincere as she had sounded.
Taking himself off to the nearest French window, he stood staring out morosely—staring out at the silly little rockery, with the silly little pond at the foot of it, containing the silly little boat that never sailed anywhere. He was cross with himself and even more cross with her. Why couldn't she have behaved sensibly, instead of bursting like a rain-cloud without warning? She made mysteries out of everything, out of himself, Terry and even her sister's portrait. She never gave him a complete answer to any question. She surrounded herself with the atmosphere of a detective novel. He was half-minded to rush into the hall and make good his escape before she involved him further. Sir Tobias could come and conduct his own unpleasantness. How on earth