"What was he saying just before you left the dining-room which made you look so haughty, dearest? He was not impertinent to you, I hope," and Henry frowned a little at the thought.
Sabine played with her fan—she was feeling inexpressibly mean.
"No—not in the least—we were discussing someone we had both known—long ago—she is dead now. I may have been a little annoyed at what he said. Oh! is that a Scotch reel they are going to begin?"
How glad she was of this diversion! She knew she had been capricious with Lord Fordyce once or twice during the evening. She was greatly perturbed. Oh! Why had she not had the courage to be her usual, honest self, and have told him immediately at Héronac who her husband really was. She was in a false position, ashamed of her deceit and surrounded by a net-work of acted lies; and all through everything there was a passionate longing to speak to Michael again, and to be near him once more as at dinner. She had been conscious of everything that he did—of whom he had danced with—Moravia for several times—and now she knew that he was not in the ball-room.
Nothing could exceed Henry's gentleness and goodness to her. He watched her moods and put up with her caprices; that something unusual had disturbed her he felt, but what it could be he was unable to guess.
Sabine was aware that other women were envying her for the attention showered upon her by this much sought after man. She tried to assure herself how fortunate she was, and now got Henry to tell her once more of things about his home. It was in the fairest part of Kent, and they had often talked of the wonderful garden they would have in that fertile country sheltered from all wind, and she knew that as soon as the divorce was over, she and Moravia would go and stay there and look over it all, and meet his mother, which meeting had not yet been arranged. For some unknown reason nothing would induce her to go now.
"I would rather see it for the first time, Henry, when I am engaged to you. Now I should be an ordinary visitor—can't you understand?"
And he had said that he could. It always thrilled him when she appeared to take an interest in his home.
They talked now about it—and how he would so love her to choose her own rooms and have them arranged as she liked. Then he made pictures of their life together there, and as he spoke her heart seemed to sink and become heavier every moment, until at last she could bear no more.
It was about two dances before supper, into which she had promised to go with him. She would get away to her room now and be alone until then. She must pull herself together and act with common sense.