"Tita, really——"
"There! I'll be good. I'll consign him to the lowest depths and never dig him up again. And so he has left town? What a blessed relief! Now I can go out and enjoy myself. Let us go out, Meg! Let us——what's that?"
She stands transfixed in the middle of the room, Margaret opposite her. Both seem stricken into marble.
A knock at the door, loud, sharp, resounding—a knock well known to both.
"And you said he was gone to the country," says Tita, in a low whisper filled with deepest suspicions.
"He said so. I believed it. It must be a mistake," says Margaret.
"He certainly said so."
They have lost some moments over their fear and astonishment. The sound of a rapidly approaching footstep, quite as well known to them as the knock, rouses both to a sense of desperation.
"What on earth shall I do?" says Tita, who is now as white as a sheet.
"Stay and see him," says Margaret, with sudden inspiration.
"Stay! Do you think I should stay for one moment in the room with him? No! I shall go in there," pointing to the next room that opens out of this with folding-doors, "and wait until he goes away."