He little knew!
CHAPTER VIII.
When Mrs. Dormer-Smith practised any deception—a necessity which unfortunately arose rather frequently in the prosecution of her duty to society—she was wont to call it diplomacy. She called it so to herself, in her most private cogitations. She was not a woman whose conscience could be satisfied by any but the best chosen phraseology.
In speaking to May of her conversation with Owen, she gave a "diplomatic" version of it. It was May herself who innocently suggested the line her aunt took. When she found that Owen had left the house without any further farewell to her, she said not a word, she demanded no explanation; but the disappointed look in her eyes, the drooping curves of her young mouth, were sufficiently eloquent. Had she fired up into indignation against her aunt, assuming as a matter of course that Owen had been refused permission to see her again, that would have seemed quite in accordance with her character. This was, in fact, what Pauline had prepared herself to meet. But this quietude was strange. It seemed as though May were ready to be wounded. Her aunt thought that it would not have occurred to the girl—who was high-spirited enough in certain directions—to suspect that her lover might be less eager to see her again than she was to see him, unless some previous fact or fancy had put the suspicion into her head. Fact or fancy, Mrs. Dormer-Smith thought it mattered little which, so long as the suspicion were there.
Of course it would not do to pretend that Owen had not asked to see her. That would be a clumsy falsehood, sure of speedy detection; and, besides, Mrs. Dormer-Smith wished to avoid explicit falsehood. She was only diplomatic.
"I was obliged, I need scarcely tell you, May," she said, "to refuse Mr. Rivers's request for some more words with you. It would have been a gross dereliction of duty on my part to permit it."
"He did ask to see me, then?" said May, with a bright eager look in her eyes. It was a look her aunt was well acquainted with, and usually presaged some speech which had to be deplored as being "odd," or "bad form."
"Oh yes," replied Mrs. Dormer-Smith wearily. "Of course, he asked; I had to go through all that. Under the circumstances he could scarcely do less."
The shadow of the eyelashes suddenly drooped down over the bright eyes; and Aunt Pauline saw that her shot had told.