She leans against him, and rubs her cheek carelessly against his shoulder.
The gratified expression deepens an instant; then Braine says a little hurriedly, with a touch of anxiety in the tone:
"You must not neglect anything for me, dearest. Social duties are everything here. Don't mind me. I sha'n't feel neglected."
Helen slowly raises her head. She stares at him for a moment. He is looking abstractedly into the fire, and patting her hand in a mechanical way. He does not see her face. The expression of pleasure and gratification has died out of it. Expressions of astonishment, humiliation, resentment and hauteur replace each other there successively. Now she says in a cold tone:
"I did not remain on that account, of course. I had a slight headache—a mere nothing—" as Braine looks up anxiously—"But I felt that the crush there to-night would not help it."
She finishes a little less coldly. Braine has not noticed the tone. When she has said that the headache is a "mere nothing," he at once goes back to his meditations—but the sudden look of anxious sympathy has at once touched her, and caused another revulsion of feeling in his favor.
She crosses the room and picks up a book from the table.
Suddenly Braine says, as though thinking aloud:
"If this should go any farther it would be a bad thing for Grayson."
Helen looks up from her book: