This was not quite true. Mrs. Hancock had not thought anything whatever about it. But this phrase of purely dinner conversation disconcerted Elizabeth for a moment. Edith, suddenly looking up, perceived this obscure embarrassment.
"No, Aunt Julia, there was no mystery," said Elizabeth. "There was merely my mistaken kindness in sparing Edward. Now I shall sacrifice and expose him. He came in when I was practising quietly, so that I didn't hear him, and sat down to listen. And when I had finished my piece I turned round and saw him, and, of course, I was startled and annoyed. Wasn't it caddish of him! Do say it was caddish!"
That should have been sufficiently robust to have carried off and finished with the subject. But it so happened that Mrs. Hancock went on.
"My dear, what words to use!" she said. "Edith will be up in arms. Look, there is another flash of lightning! We shall have a regular storm, I am afraid. And what did you say to him?"
"She told me to go away," said Edward, "which I did. And I asked her to forgive me. I don't know if she's done that yet."
The desire for secret communication with her prompted and impelled him.
"I shall ask her later if she has," he said, raising his eyes to her face. "Her screening me was a sign of her softening."
"But her giving you away now shows signs of hardening again," said Edith.
"Perhaps she doesn't know her own mind," said Edward, still looking at her, and knowing but not caring that he had no business to force replies on her, so long as he could talk with a meaning that was clear to her alone.
This time the secret look that leaped out to him below her amazement showed again through the trouble and brightness of her face.