"But why?" asks Rylton. "Has she forbidden you to mention her to me?"
"Certainly not! Why should she?"
"Why indeed? A man more barbarously treated by her than I have been—has seldom——"
Margaret's unhappy eyes once more glance towards the screen. It is shaking now—ominously.
"Of course! Of course! We all know that," says she, her eyes on the screen, her mind nowhere. She has not the least idea of the words she has chosen. She had meant only to pacify him, to avert the catastrophe if possible: she had spoken timidly, enthusiastically, fatally. The screen now seems to quiver to its fall. An earthquake has taken possession of it, apparently—an earthquake in an extremely advanced stage.
Oh, those girls, and their promises about their fingers and their ears!
"I'm sorry I can't ask you to stay, Maurice," says she hurriedly. "But—but I'm not well: I, too, have a headache—a sort of neuralgia, you know."
"You seem pretty well, however," says Sir Maurice, regarding her curiously.
"Oh, I dare say," impatiently. "But I'm not. I'm ill. I tell you this sudden attack of influenza is overpowering me, and—it's infectious, my dear Maurice. It is really. They all say so—the very cleverest doctors; and I should never forgive myself if you took it—and, besides——"
"You can't be feeling very bad," says Maurice slowly. "Your colour is all right."