He looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Gold-digging, eh? Do you care for anything else, my girl? Do you?”
She stiffened. “I'm not going to be spoken to like that, Kenneth. I'll go.”
There was a pause. Kenneth had turned back to his work, for the first time indifferent to her anger. She moved towards the door, but looked back before she opened it. Her voice changed. She said gently: “If you want to break off our engagement, please tell me! Do you, Kenneth?”
He did not answer for a moment, but swung round and stood looking at her under scowling brows. “I don't know,” he said at last.
She remained quite still, fixing her great eyes on his. He put down his palette suddenly, and strode across the floor to her side, and pulled her roughly into his arms. “No. No, I don't. Damn you, you've no heart, but I'm just going to paint you like that, against the door, with the light falling just so.”
She returned his embrace, and took his face between her slender hands. “Try not to mistrust me, darling. It hurts.”
“Leave Roger alone, then,” he replied.
“Yes, dear, as soon as I've got him out of this place I will,” she promised. “You can't really suppose that he's of any interest to me!”
He let the subject drop, but might well have pursued it more rigorously had he but heard what his half-brother was saying to Antonia at that very moment.
Roger, who said that the sight of Kenneth dabbing at a picture was very unrestful, had sought refuge in the kitchen, where he found Antonia busily engaged in ironing handkerchiefs. This was a hardly less disturbing sight than that of an artist at work, but it had the advantage of being unaccompanied by the smell of turpentine. Having ascertained that Murgatroyd had gone out to do the marketing, Roger sank into the basket-chair by the fire, and lit a cigarette.