And when she had gone from the room he lay and quivered, a sense of hideous humiliation flooding his being.
The following day she came in the morning. She looked girlish in her short tennis frock and was rippling with smiles. She sat on the bed and kissed him—and then slipped her hand into his.
"John, darling," she said sweetly. "People will begin to talk if I stay here at Wendover now that you are getting better—and you would hate that as much as I—so I have settled to go to Carlsbad with Lady Maulevrier—just for three weeks. By that time my splendid John will be himself again and we can settle about our wedding—" then she bent and kissed him once more before he could speak. "Arabella is going to get her mother to come down," she went on, "and you will be safe here with these devoted old ladies and your Brome who is plainly in love with you, poor thing!" and she laughed gayly. "Say you think it is best, too, John, dearest?"
"Whatever you wish," he answered with some sudden quick sense of relief. "I know I am an awful bore lying here, and I shall not be able to crawl to a sofa even for another week, these doctors say."
"You are not a bore—you are a darling," she murmured, patting his hand. "And if only I were allowed to stay with you—night and day—and nurse you like Brome, I should be perfectly happy. But these snatched scraps—John, darling, I can't bear it!"
He wondered if she were lying. He half thought so, but she looked so beautiful, it enabled him to return her caresses with some tepid warmth.
"It is too sweet of you, Cecilia," he said, as he kissed her. He had not yet used one word of intimate endearment—she had never been his darling, his sweet and his own, like Halcyone.
After she had gone again, all details having been settled for her departure upon the Monday, he almost felt that he hated her. For, when she was in this apparently loving mood, it seemed as if her bonds tightened round his throat and strangled him to death. "Octopus arms" he remembered Cheiron had called them.
When Mrs. Cricklander got back to her own favorite long seat out on the terrace, she sat down, and settling the pillows under her head, she let her thoughts ticket her advantages gained, in her usual concrete fashion.
"He is absolutely mine, body and soul. He does not love me—we shall have the jolliest time seeing who will win presently—but I have got the dollars, so there is no doubt of the result—and what fun it will be! It does not matter what I do now, he cannot break away from me. He has let me see plainly that my money has influenced him—and, although Englishmen are fools, in his class they are ridiculously honorable. I've got him!" and she laughed aloud. "It is all safe, he will not break the bargain!"