"Oh, please don't say any more. I'm very much obliged to you. I mean I'm extremely sorry. But I beg you won't say another word, and forget all about it as quickly as possible."
"Forget it! Nay, that is out of the question. I could not if I would."
Theodore began to recover his self-command as May lost hers. She was agitated and trembling. Well, he would not have had her listen to his words unmoved. She was very young and inexperienced. And he had, it seemed, taken her by surprise.
"Is it possible," he continued softly, "that you were quite unprepared to hear——"
"Quite unprepared. But that makes no difference. And you really must allow me to go away. I'm very sorry, indeed, but I can't stay here another moment."
"Am I so repulsive?" said he, with a sentimental beseeching glance. But he met an expression in her face which made him add quickly, in quite another tone, "Well, well, I will prefer your wishes to my own," at the same time drawing himself and his chair to one side.
She had looked almost capable of leaping over the table to escape. May brushed past him, and darted away out of the room without another word.
Theodore seized hold of the book she had left behind her, and bent his head over it. He saw not one word on the printed page beneath his eyes, but it saved him from appearing as confused as he felt. Had he been rejected? And, if so, was it a rejection which he was bound to consider final? Or had he received no real answer at all? Gradually, as his throat grew less dry, his head less hot, and his brain more clear, he arrived at the conclusion that he had virtually had no answer. May was little more than a child, and he had startled her. Then he remembered that word of May's, "It is about Constance you wish to speak to me." Could she be under any misapprehension as to his position with regard to Constance? The idea was fraught with comfort. That, at least, he could set right, and without delay. He rose and walked across the room at once to Mrs. Dormer-Smith's sofa.
At this moment the procession of men, headed by Lord Castlecombe, arrived from the dining-room. Constance glided away, leaving her vacant chair for Theodore, who immediately occupied it, thus cutting off Mrs. Dormer-Smith from the rest of the company. That lady looked anxiously across his shoulder.
"Would you," she said to Theodore, "would you be so very good as to ask my husband to inquire where Miss Cheffington is? My uncle would like to talk to her, I know; and——Oh, there she is! Thanks. Don't trouble yourself."