With a little air of injured pride she started to go to her room; but he put out a hand to detain her.
"You've just come from the studio?"
"Yes. It is awfully late? I must go and dress. We're dining with the
Ellings, you know."
"I know… How did you come? In a cab?"
She faced him limpidly. "No; I couldn't find one that would bring me—so Peter gave me a lift, like an angel. I'm blown to bits. He had his open car."
Her colour was still high, and Ralph noticed that her lower lip twitched a little. He had led her to the point they had reached solely to be able to say: "If you're straight from the studio, how was it that I saw you coming down from Morningside?"
Unless he asked her that there would be no point in his cross-questioning, and he would have sacrificed his pride without a purpose. But suddenly, as they stood there face to face, almost touching, she became something immeasurably alien and far off, and the question died on his lips.
"Is that all?" she asked with a slight smile.
"Yes; you'd better go and dress," he said, and turned back to his room.