"Oh, don't!" Chris cried out sharply. "Don't!"
She put her hands over her face as if dazzled, and so stood quivering.
"What is it?" Mordaunt asked. "Did I startle you?"
He came to her. He drew her hands gently down. But she almost cowered before him, and he let her go.
"I think that she is tired," Bertrand said, his voice very low.
"Is that all?" Mordaunt asked, looking at him.
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders, and made no reply. But Chris turned at the question, turned and confronted her husband with wide, scared eyes.
"Yes, I am tired," she said, speaking jerkily, breathlessly. "But—but I was startled too. I—I thought I heard Cinders—barking."
It was the first time she had ever deliberately lied to him, and her eyes met his full as she did it in desperate self-defence.
He looked at her very steadily for the space of several seconds after she had spoken, and in the silence Bertrand's hands clenched hard.