"Darling, do you need an answer?"
"Then why did you choose that song?"
"I hardly know."
"I was hateful to you just now, and most unjust."
"Were you? I have forgotten it," replies she, smiling happily, the color coming back to her cheeks. Whereupon Paul Rodney's brows contract, and with a muttered curse he turns aside and leaves the room, and then the house, without another word or backward glance.
CHAPTER XXIX.
HOW GEOFFREY DINES OUT, AND HOW MONA FARES DURING HIS ABSENCE.
"Must you really go, Geoffrey?—really?" asks Mona, miserably, looking the very personification of despair. She has asked the same question in the same tone ever since early dawn, and it is now four o'clock.
"Yes, really. Horrid bore, isn't it?—but county dinners must be attended, and Nicholas will do nothing. Besides, it isn't fair to ask him just now, dear old fellow, when he has so much upon his mind."