This seemed to upset her considerably. She hated the idea that she was thought unfair. It may have made her realize too that she had a definite sense of injury. She lost her temper, she stamped her scrap of a foot.
"I hate you!" she burst out. "You and your bargain! I wish I was dead!" and then she sank into the sofa and covered her face with her hands, and by the shaking of her shoulders, I saw that she was crying!
If I had been cool enough to think then, I suppose I could have reasoned that all this was probably most flattering to me, and an extra proof of her state of mind, but the agitation it had plunged me into made me unable to balance things, and I too allowed my temper to get the better of me, and I got up as best I could and seizing my crutch, I walked towards my bedroom door.
"I shall expect an apology," was all I said, and went in and left her alone.
If we are to go on fighting like this, life won't be worth living!
I tried to calm myself and went in the window, but the servants came into the room to make the bed, so I was forced to go back again to the sitting-room. Alathea had gone into the little salon, I suppose, because for the same reason, she could not have returned to her room. I sat down in my chair quite exhausted. I did not feel like reading or doing anything.
It was to-day that we were to go to the Duchesse's in the afternoon for Alathea to be presented to our friends as my wife! I wondered if she had forgotten this!
After an hour Burton came in with the second post.
"You do look badly, Sir Nicholas!" he said. His face was perplexed and troubled. "Can I get you anything?"
"Where is Her Ladyship, Burton?"