“I do not,” he returned, closing the door, drawing up the window, and placing the tea upon the table before her.
Stephen Lee strolled back to his own compartment, but his indifference was only assumed. He was utterly dazed and puzzled. “ ’Tis some trick of old Sarah’s,” he kept on repeating to himself, and his bewilderment was so great that he hardly troubled his mind by surmises as to what would pass between the bride and bridegroom, left alone together again after the episode of the station.
What did actually happen became a fruitful topic for society newspapers for many, many months afterward.
Lord Carthew’s face was fixed like a mask as he seated himself on the opposite side of the carriage to his bride, while the train began slowly moving out of the station. It vexed him that presently he could not control that nervous twitching at this moment when he needed all his firmness, all his dignity. He could not speak to her, for with all his radical notions he was essentially a proud man, with a very high ideal of womanhood, and a still higher ideal of the position and duties of the woman he had chosen for his wife. Her conduct filled his mind with the utmost dismay, and a sensation of strong repulsion against her began to overmaster him.
“Are you cross?” she asked at last, lightly, breaking the silence. “I only mean to tease you.”
“Stella,” he exclaimed in desperation, “are you mad? Are you not capable of appreciating the value of your own actions, or has grieving over your recent loss turned your brain? Do you understand that you are my wife, Lady Carthew, that my honor is yours, and that it is outraging my name and your own reputation to make yourself a laughing-stock for station idlers by vulgar familiarity with one of your father’s servants? Stella, I can hardly believe it possible that I should have to address such words to you; you, whom I have reverenced as the most innocent, most refined of women! You cannot surely know what you are doing; fever must have mounted to your brain—great Heaven! If I thought you were truly responsible for such coarse and immodest behavior, I would never willingly look upon your face again!”
He had risen in his excitement, and stood staring across at her, noting with ever-increasing wonder and disgust the way in which she leaned forward, with her elbow on the table, and her face resting on her right hand, while with her left she drummed an impatient tattoo in front of her.
She looked up at him, furtively.
“Am I to understand,” she asked, “that you hope I’m mad?”
“You are to understand,” he broke out, passionately, “that only temporary insanity would, in my eyes, excuse your revolting conduct.”