“Ah! Were you not there?” she inquired.
He turned and looked at her with his curt laugh. “If I had been there you would have known it,” he said.
It was just one of those remarks—delivered in the half-mocking voice assumed in self-protection—which Mrs. Vansittart had hitherto allowed to pass unchallenged. And now, quite suddenly, she resented the manner and the speech.
“Indeed,” she said, with a subtle inflection of tone which should have warned him.
But he was engaged in drawing down his cuffs. Many young men would know more of the world if they had no cuffs or collars to distract them.
“Yes,” answered Roden; “if I had gone to the concert it would not have been for the music.”
Percy Roden's method of making love was essentially modern. He threw to Mrs. Vansittart certain scraps of patronage and admiration, which she could pick up seriously and keep if she cared to. But he was not going to risk a wound to his vanity by taking the initiative too earnestly. Mrs. Vansittart, who was busy at the tea-table, set down a cup which she had in her hand and crossed the room towards him.
“What do you mean, Mr. Roden?” she asked slowly.
He looked up with wavering eyes, and visibly lost colour under her gaze.
“What do I mean?”