“Oh, don’t say that. You won’t when you have rested a little, and had something to eat. Don’t let me detain you. I can wait here, if I may, while you dine.”
Audrey bit her lip.
“You have dined, yourself?” she asked perfunctorily.
For some reason, perhaps it was on account of Lord Clanfield’s disapproval of her friends, she did not feel kindly disposed to Mr. Candover at that moment. She had, even while he consulted her on this question of fashions, an uneasy, dim, vague sense that he was connected with her misfortunes; connected wilfully, and not by unhappy chance. At another time she might have been ashamed of this vague feeling, but at this moment of irritation, disappointment and despair, she could not be just, she was at the mercy of—instincts.
And her instincts, at this moment of depression, were all in arms against him.
“Yes, thanks. I dined early, before leaving town. You will see me to settle this matter, won’t you?”
He was winning, persuasive, gentle. Wounded, irritable, full of misgivings as she was, she could not help finding his deference, his almost humble courtesy, both welcome and soothing.
She left him, and dining hurriedly, dressed herself with care, as a woman does when she is conscious that there is an ordeal of some sort in prospect.
And when she came down to the drawing-room she was at least outwardly calm, radiant and beautiful, even if her mind was torn with perplexing questions.
She had intentionally said no word as yet to Mr. Candover of the momentous news of Gerard’s release. Not a word, either, of her visit to Lord Clanfield’s. These pieces of information would, she knew, open up such a wide field for discussion that they could not be approached except with full leisure. That leisure, had, however now come, and she knew, as she swept into the drawing-room, in her dress of cream silk muslin with huge rosettes of palest turquoise velvet, that there was a struggle in store.