“Oh, no, I’m glad you won’t be!” she panted out.
“Why? Why?”
“Oh, he was horribly jealous if I—if anybody—”
And then she broke off, faltering, crimson, confused: but not more crimson, not more confused, not, alas! more delighted than was Southerley, who recognised in this little outburst the fact that the ill-used wife had noticed and had not been unmoved by his own clumsy, silent adoration.
But, if she had been for a moment indiscreet, she repented very quickly and very severely.
“I do wish Mr Bayre would come!” she said with asperity, which smote her hearer to the heart.
Drawing instantly back like a snail into its shell, he made a clumsy dash for the door, and saying incoherently, “Oh, ah, yes, yes, I—I forgot—I—I’ll tell him!” he fled out of the room and lumbered up the stairs.
Although she had been so anxious to see Bayre, Miss Merriman did not stay long discussing the journey with him; they arranged to meet at Paddington on the following morning, and, five minutes later, the beautiful visitor quitted the house, leaving the young men in a state of much excitement over the approaching event of the journey to Creux and its result.
“If that wretched old lunatic goes on living,” observed Southerley, “I shall cut my throat.”
But Bayre reprimanded him severely.