He looked keenly at her, but she was evidently quite unconscious of the game he had tried to play for the amusement of his little circle. She only spoke in general terms.
“There was a time, Monica,” he said gently, “when you cared less what the world would say.”
“There was a time, Sir Conrad,” she answered, with quiet dignity, “when I knew less what the world might say.”
Had Monica had the least suspicion of what her companion had tried to make it say, she would not now have been riding with him along the darkening streets, just as carriages were rolling by carrying people to dinner or to the theatres.
Twice she had imperatively dismissed him, but he had absolutely declined to leave her.
“I will not address another word to you if my presence is distasteful to you,” he said; “but you are my sister’s guest, and in the absence of her husband I stand in the place of your host. I will not leave you to ride home at this late hour alone. At the risk of incurring your displeasure I attend you to your own door.”
Monica did not protest after that, but she hardly addressed a single word to her silent companion.
As she rode up to her own house she saw that the door stood open. The groom was there, with his horse. He was in earnest converse with a tall, broad-shouldered man, who held a hunting-whip in his hand, and appeared about to spring into the saddle.
Monica’s heart gave a sudden leap. Who was that other man standing with his back to her on the pavement? He turned quickly at the sound of her approach—it was her husband.