"Haven't you been there—on secret visits?"
Ransom started just perceptibly; but to conceal it, the next instant, he stood up.
"They wouldn't be secret if I were to tell you."
Looking down at her he saw that her words were a happy hit, not the result of definite knowledge. But she appeared to him vain, egotistical, grasping, odious.
"Well, I shall give the alarm," she went on; "that is, I will if you leave me. Is that the way a Southern gentleman treats a lady? Do as I wish, and I will let you off!"
"You won't let me off from staying with you."
"Is it such a corvée? I never heard of such rudeness!" Mrs. Luna cried. "All the same, I am determined to keep you if I can!"
Ransom felt that she must be in the wrong, and yet superficially she seemed (and it was quite intolerable) to have right on her side. All this while Verena's golden voice, with her words indistinct, solicited, tantalised his ear. The question had evidently got on Mrs. Luna's nerves; she had reached that point of feminine embroilment when a woman is perverse for the sake of perversity, and even with a clear vision of bad consequences.
"You have lost your head," he relieved himself by saying, as he looked down at her.
"I wish you would go and get me some tea."