I obeyed, and in a voice which I felt was humble, though it tried to be careless and gay, I said—"Give me back my gloves, Edward; you are spoiling them."
He detained them an instant, as I took hold of them, and said half sternly, half tenderly—"Have you nothing to say to me? I thought last night—"
"Oh, last night, I was quite beside myself," I interrupted, with a nervous attempt at a laugh. "I talked nonsense to everybody, and you must not call me to account for what I may have said or done."
"I am afraid not," he answered coldly; and, taking up a newspaper, he sat down again at the table.
I remained standing where he had left me, with my eyes fixed upon him, vainly endeavouring to find out some means of appeasing him. Nothing but openness and frankness could reinstate me in his favour: and how could I be open and frank? What could I tell him that would justify my intimacy with Henry? or account for the agitation which his words had caused me? Nothing; nothing short of the truth; and that—oh! how wearied I was with that eternal combat with myself—with that everlasting question, so often asked, and so often answered by my own mind. I absolutely shrunk from discussing it with myself again.
I walked impatiently up and down the room, and when Mrs. Middleton came in with a note in her hand, which she gave me to read, I felt glad of anything which would break the course of these harassing thoughts. The note was from Henry, to tell his sister that Alice was poorly, and would be glad to see herself or me.
"Shall you go?" I asked.
"Will you, my love?" she answered. "I expect my father at twelve, and your visit will, I have no doubt, be more acceptable to Alice than mine."
"Is the carriage at the door?" I inquired, and, having ascertained that it was, I ran up-stairs to put on my bonnet.
On my way down, I opened the door of the breakfast-room, to see if Edward was gone. He was alone; and as I came in, he said, "Are you going to see Mrs. Lovell?"