The time between his departure and seven o’clock she spent by herself, unoccupied, sitting as if tired. She put off the necessary changing of garments till there was scarcely time for it. When at length she was summoned she went down with flushed face.
‘I feel as if I were going to have a fever,’ she said to Stella in the drawing-room. She could not help uttering the words, but laughed immediately.
‘Your hand is really very hot,’ Stella replied.
Mutimer had a cab at the door, and was waiting in the hall.
‘You’re a long time,’ was his greeting, with more impatience than he had ever used to her.
When they were together in the hansom:
‘Why did you refuse Alice’s invitation before?’ he asked with displeasure.
‘I didn’t think she really wished me to accept it.’
She spoke without misgiving, still resenting his manner.
‘Didn’t think? Why, what do you mean?’