“I must have left my handkerchief upstairs,” said Lexy. “Excuse me just a minute, please!”
But she was gone more than a minute, and when she returned her face was curiously white.
XVIII
The clock struck eleven. Lexy glanced up from her book, in the vain hope that somebody would speak, would stir, would make some move to end this intolerable evening; but nobody did.
Dr. Quelton and Captain Grey were playing chess. They sat facing each other at a small table, in a haze of tobacco smoke, silent and intent, as if they had been gods deciding human destinies. Mrs. Quelton lay on her chaise longue, doing nothing at all. If Lexy spoke to her, she answered in a low tone, but cheerfully enough; but she so obviously preferred not to talk that Lexy had taken up a book and vainly attempted to read.
It was the most wearisome and depressing evening she had ever spent. Her lively and restless spirit had often enough found it dull at the Enderbys’, and at other times and places; but this was different, and infinitely worse.
To begin with, a sense of guilt lay like lead upon her heart. She hoped and believed that what she had done was right, but she was afraid, terribly afraid, of what might result. She could not keep her eyes off Mrs. Quelton’s face. She watched the doctor’s wife with a dread and anxiety which she felt was ill concealed; and she had a chill suspicion that the doctor was watching her, in turn.
“Of course, he’s bound to find out some time,” she said to herself. “I wasn’t such a fool as to expect more than a day or two, at the very most; but I did hope there’d be time just to see—”
Again she glanced at Mrs. Quelton. Was it imagination, or was there already a faint and indefinable change?
“No, that’s nonsense,” she thought. “There couldn’t be, so soon—although I don’t know how often he gives her that priceless tonic.”