"I want to see him quite as much as he wants to see me," says Tita. "By-the-bye, you ought to tell James about his coming. It is half-past three now."
"He's always late," says Margaret lazily.
But even as she says it, both Tita and she are conscious of the approach of a man's footstep, that assuredly is not the footstep of James.
"I told you—I told you!" cries Tita, springing to her feet, and wringing her hands. "Oh! why didn't you give some directions to James? Oh, Margaret! Oh! what shall I do? If I go out there I shall meet him face to face. Oh! why do people build rooms with only one door in them? I'm undone." She glances wildly round her, and in the far distance of this big drawing-room espies a screen. "That," gasps she, "that will do! I'll hide myself behind that. Don't keep him long, Meg darling! Hurry him off. Say you've got the cholera—any little thing like that—and get rid of him."
"Tita—you can't. It is impossible. He will probably say things, and you won't like them—and——"
"I shan't listen! I shall put my fingers in my ears. Of course"—indignantly—"I shan't listen."
"But—Tita—good gracious——"
Her other words are lost for ever. The handle of the door is turned.
Tita, indeed, has barely time to scramble behind the screen when Sir
Maurice is announced by James, who is electrified by the glance his
mistress casts at him.
"I expect I'm a little early," says Rylton, shaking hands with Margaret—apologizing in his words but not in his tone. He is of course unaware of the heart-burnings in Margaret's breast, or the apology would have been more than a mere society speech. "You are alone?"
Here poor Margaret's purgatory begins—Margaret, who is the soul of truth.