"They want you to speak," I whispered, and shook the cold hand I held in a fury of impatience.
His lips trembled: he stared at me blankly. "My God, my God, what have I done?" he muttered to himself, "Cécile's child—Cécile's child!"
I could have burst out sobbing. But seeing Rupert's face bent down towards his plate, demure and solemn, yet stamped, for all his cleverness, with an almost devilish triumph, my pride rose and my courage. Every one else seemed to be looking towards us: I stood up.
"Good friends," I said, "I see that my husband is so much touched by the welcome that you are giving his bride, the welcome that you are giving him after his long exile from his house, that he is quite unable to answer you as he would wish. But lest you should misunderstand this silence of his, I am bold enough to answer you in his name, and—since it is but a few moments ago that you have seen us made one, I think I have the right to do so.... We thank you."
My heart was beating to suffocation—but I carried bravely on till I was drowned in a storm of acclamations to which the first cheers were as nothing.
They drank my health again, and again I heard the old gentleman of the indiscreet voice—I have learned since he is stone deaf, and I daresay he flattered himself he spoke in a whisper—proclaim that I was my mother all over again: begad—so had she spoken to them twenty years ago in this very room!
Here Tanty came to the rescue and carried me off.
I dared not trust myself to look at Adrian as I left, but I knew that he followed me to the door, from which I presumed that he had recovered his presence of mind in some degree.
Since that day we have been like two who walk along on opposite banks of a widening stream—ever more and more divided.
I have told no one of my despair. It is curious, but, little wifely as I feel towards him, there is something in me that keeps me back from the disloyalty of discussing my husband with other people.