“Oh indeed! I see too much of Jack! I pass too much time with him! And what of Miss Pembury? I don’t complain of your affection for her, or of the way in which she has wormed herself into your confidence, until your first thought is to take advice from her, even in a matter which concerns your wife.”
He stammered, surprised at her swift retort. But she went on, volubly, haughtily.
“If I don’t complain about your fondness for her, or about her insinuating herself into your affections and those of my own child, I really don’t see why you should make horrible insinuations about your own ward.”
He silenced her sternly.
“You forget yourself,” said he in a voice which frightened her by its sudden unexpected assumption of masculine powers and rights. “No one knows better than you do that I am incapable of disloyalty to you, that my only fault towards you has been my weakness in being unable to resist or control you. Never let me hear a word of this trivial pretence of jealousy again. You are not jealous, you could not be. God forgive me for saying it, but I only wish you were!”
The heartfelt emotion which thrilled in these words would have softened a woman less self-willed, less hardened in her own caprices than Lady Sarah. As it was, she was only frightened, not touched to tenderness. It was he who was ashamed of the feelings which threatened to overpower him.
Ashamed of his own weakness, and fearing that he was only irritating instead of softening her, he suddenly let her go, and raising her hand to his lips, pressed one tender kiss upon it and then, turning sharply away, felt in his pocket for the keys of his gallery and went out of the study.
Lady Sarah listened a few moments, until she heard the key turn in the gallery door, and knew that her husband had shut himself in with his treasures for the evening.
Then she quickly dried her own eyes, arranged her slightly disordered hair at a tiny gold-mounted mirror which she wore, with other pretty trifles, on her long neck-chain, and with a sigh, found her way quickly to the drawing-room, where Jack Rotherfield, looking rather anxious and perturbed, was affecting to try to flirt with Minnie.
Lady Sarah beckoned him to her side as soon as she entered the room, and with an angry glance at Rhoda, who was pretending to read a book to hide the emotion from which she was suffering, whispered hurriedly: