"Your mother?" asks she, peering into the darkness.
"She has not come. I had a telegram from her at Claridge's. She can't come till next week, so I came back." He pauses, and then, abruptly, "Where is Tita?"
"Tita?" Mrs. Bethune shrugs her shoulders, and a little low laugh escapes her. "She is playing hide-and-seek," says she, "with—her cousin."
"What are you saying?" exclaims Rylton, her manner far more than her words striking cold to his heart. "Do you mean to insinuate——"
"Why, nothing. I insinuate nothing; we have all been playing——"
"All?"
"Yes."
"You and——"
"And everyone else."
"Was there nothing better, then, for you all to do?"