“I do not know you to-night,” he said coldly. “I have seen you in a number of moods, and occasionally in a temper, but I have never before seen you when you were not—sweet.”
“I don’t feel sweet. I wish I did. I hate to hurt you.”
Cecil seized the suggestion. “You have certainly hurt me; and nobody could know better than you how much. What is the matter with you?”
“I want a change, that is all.”
“I’m afraid I’ve really done something quite abominable, although I don’t remember—and it isn’t like you not to speak out.”
“I haven’t a fault in the world to find with you. I wish I had!”
“I don’t understand you,” he said helplessly. “And as I am so dense, perhaps you will be good enough to explain. I really think I have the right to demand it.” He would have liked to shake her, for he had not yet been made to realise that she was in anything but a surprisingly nasty temper.
Lee was quite sure that he had the right to demand a full explanation, and she cast about for the phrases which would point it best. But her reasons put their tails between their legs and scampered to the back of her brain, where they looked petty enough. So she began to cry instead.
Cecil took her in his arms instantly, excoriating himself for his desire to shake her. “You are ill; I know you are ill,” he whispered, “and you are so unused to it that it has quite demoralised you.” Then, his knowledge of women being primitive indeed, he descended to bribery. “I am going to ask father to give you my mother’s jewels; I never knew he had them—that there were any—till the other day. There are some wonderful pieces.”
Lee pricked up her ears, then despised herself and sobbed the harder. Suddenly, she shrank visibly from him, slipped from his embrace and walked over to the fireplace, turning her back to her husband. It had flashed into her mind that Randolph’s arms had been round her that morning. She had thought no more of it at the time than if they had been Mrs. Montgomery’s or Coralie’s; but of a sudden her quiescence seemed an act of infidelity, if for no other reason than because Cecil would be furious if he knew it. She decided that she certainly must be growing morbid, and she resigned herself to being just as unpleasant as her resources permitted.