Mr. Van Torp's face had hardened till it looked like a mask, he stared firmly at the wall, and his lips were set tightly together. Margaret gazed at him in surprise while she might have counted ten. Then he spoke slowly, with evident effort, and in an odd voice.
'Excuse me, Miss Donne,' he said, snapping his words out. 'I'm so grateful that I can't speak, that's all. It'll be all right in a second.'
A huge emotion had got hold of him. She saw the red flush rise suddenly above his collar, and then sink back before it reached his cheeks, and all at once he was very pale. But not a muscle of his face moved, not a line was drawn; only his sandy eyelashes quivered a little. His hands were thrust deep into the pockets of his jacket, but the fingers were motionless.
Margaret remembered how he had told her more than once that she was the only woman the world held for him, and she had thought it was nonsense, rather vulgarly and clumsily expressed by a man who was not much better than an animal where women were concerned.
It flashed upon her at last that what he had said was literally true, that she had misjudged an extraordinary man altogether, as many people did, and that she was indeed the only woman in the whole world who could [{156}] master and dominate one whom many feared and hated, and whom she had herself once detested beyond words.
He was unchanging, too, whatever else he might be, and, as she admitted the fact, she saw clearly how fickle she had been in her own likes and dislikes, except where her art was concerned. But even as to that, she had passed through phases in which she had been foolish enough to think of giving up the stage in the first flush of her vast success.
While these thoughts were disturbing her a little, Mr. Van Torp recovered himself; his features relaxed, his hands came out of his pockets, and he slowly turned towards her.
'I hope you don't think me rude,' he said awkwardly. 'I feel things a good deal sometimes, though people mightn't believe it.'
They were still standing near together, and not far from the door through which Margaret had entered.
'It's never rude to be grateful, even for small things,' she answered gently.