"Yes, oh, yes."
The answer was given in a very low voice, with such a heart-felt sob that Max was touched to the quick. He came quite close to her, and, bending down, so that his mustache almost brushed the soft fair hair on her forehead, he whispered:
"I'm so sorry. Poor Carrie! I won't worry you, then; I won't ask any more questions, if only—if only you'll let me tell you how awfully sorry I am."
He ventured to put his hand upon her shoulder, as he bent down to look into her face.
And, as luck would have it, Mr. Wedmore at that very moment bounced out of one of the rooms which opened on the corridor, and caught sight of this pretty little picture before it broke up.
Of course, Max withdrew his hand and lifted up his head so swiftly that he flattered himself he had been too quick for his father, who walked along the corridor toward the drawing-room as if he had seen nothing.
But Max was mistaken. Mr. Wedmore, already greatly irritated by his son's repeated failures to settle down, found in this little incident a pretext for a fresh outburst of wrath.
Unluckily for poor Carrie, Mrs. Wedmore was in a state of irritation, in which she was even readier than usual to agree with her husband. The arrival of Dudley, with a terrible charge hanging over his head, in such circumstances as to stir up Doreen's feelings for him to the utmost, was bad enough. But for him to descend upon them in the company of a young woman of whom she had never heard, and in whose alleged relationship to Dudley she entirely disbelieved, had reduced the poor lady to a state which Queenie succinctly described as "one of mamma's worst."
As soon as Mr. Wedmore entered the drawing-room, where his wife and daughters were discussing some invitations to dinner which were to have been sent out, but about which there was now a doubt, he abruptly ordered the two girls to leave the room. They obeyed very quietly, but Doreen threw at her mother one imploring glance, and gently pulling her father's hair, told him that he was not to be a hard, heartless man.
When the door was shut, however, Mr. Wedmore addressed his wife in no very gentle tones.