“Mother. I entreat you!”
Lady Selina waved her hand impatiently.
“I must find out what the doctor of the parish thinks. I detest evasions. Heaven knows we have had enough of them.”
Grimshaw replied eagerly:
“I am sorely tempted to evade your question, Lady Selina. And I could do so easily. But you have chosen to raise the big issue between us, and I dare not shirk it. I dare not shirk it.” He repeated the words so sorrowfully that she eyed him more attentively. After the pause he went on: “The metaphor may be crude and harsh. It is. I should not have chosen it myself. But conditions are fundamentally wrong here, as I ventured to hint to you at our very first meeting.”
“Hints! Hints! Let us away with hints. Please tell me this: If—if conditions are so fundamentally wrong here—which I don’t admit—why are you working here? Why did you come back to—to a whited sepulchre?”
Her tone became indescribably ironic, charged, too, with a feeling that she was unable to suppress. Feeling always engenders feeling. Something about Grimshaw, the conviction that he was intensely moved, moved her. She scented mystery. And immediately this suspicion was heightened as she intercepted a glance of Cicely’s directed full at Grimshaw, a supplicating glance, beseeching forbearance and patience. Tiddy had predicted aright. Cicely was no actress. Grimshaw, unable for his part to dissemble, returned the glance. Obviously there was an understanding, or a misunderstanding, between these two. In a harder voice Lady Selina addressed the silent Grimshaw.
“Why do you look at my daughter? That boy, last night, said that you were afraid of her. Why? Is there any sort of—of league between you?”
The hunted Cicely burst out:
“A common desire to spare you.”