"Good business!" responded Herries.
He nodded in Maurice's direction, and they went out of the room together. Maurice heard their voices in laughing rejoinder, heard them take leave of each other at the halldoor. After that there was a pause. Louise lingered, before returning, to open a letter that was lying on the hall-table; she also spoke to Fraulein Grunhut. When she did come back, all trace of animation had gone from her face. She busied herself at once with the flowers he had disarranged, and this done, ordered her hair before the hanging glass. Maurice followed her movements with a sarcastic smile.
Suddenly she turned and confronted him.
"Maurice! ... for Heaven's sake, don't glare at me like that! If you've anything to say, please say it, and be done with it."
"You know well enough what I have to say." His voice was husky.
"Indeed, I don't."
"Well you ought to."
"Ought to?—No: there's a limit to everything! Take your hat off that table!—What did you mean by bursting into the room when you heard some one was here? And, as if that weren't enough—to let everybody see how much at home you are—your behaviour—your unbearable want of manners..." She stopped, and pressed her handkerchief to her lips.
"I believed you didn't care what people thought," he threw in, morosely defiant.
"That's a poor excuse for your rudeness."