"Never to me," said Chris's husband very deliberately.
Aunt Philippa smiled. "Then you are remarkably blind, my dear Trevor. Flightiness has been her chief characteristic all her life. If you have not yet found that out, I fear she must be deceitful as well."
"I am not discussing my wife's character," Mordaunt made answer very steadily.
"You prefer to shut your eyes to the obvious," said Aunt Philippa, beginning to be aware of something formidable in her path but not quite grasping its magnitude.
"I prefer my own estimate of her to that of anyone else," he made quiet reply.
Aunt Philippa made a slight gesture of uneasiness. The steady gaze was becoming a hard thing to meet. Had the man been less phlegmatic, she could almost have imagined him to be in a white heat of anger. He was so unnaturally quiet, his whole being concentrated, as it were, in a composure that she could not but feel to be ominous.
It was with an effort that the woman who sat facing him resumed her self-appointed task. "That I can well understand," she said. "But even so, I think you should bear in mind that Chris is young—and frail. You are not justified in exposing her to temptation."
"As how?"
Aunt Philippa hesitated for the first time in actual perturbation.
Mordaunt waited immovably.