She held Lady Gale’s invitation towards him.
“A picnic.” she said coldly. “To-morrow; do you care to go?”
“Are you going?” he said, looking at her.
“I should think that scarcely matters,” she answered scornfully, “judging by the amount of interest you’ve taken in me and my doings during the last week.”
“I know,” he said, and he looked down at the ground, “I have been a brute, a cad, all these days, treating you like that. I have come to apologise.”
Oh! the fool! She could have struck him with her hand! It was to be the same thing after all, then. The monotonous crawling back to her feet, the old routine of love and submission, the momentary hope of strength and contradiction strangled as soon as born.
She laughed a little. “Oh, you needn’t apologise,” she said, “and, in any case, it’s a little late, isn’t it? Not that you need mind about me. I’ve had a very pleasant week, and so have the girls, even though their father hasn’t been near them.”
But he broke in upon her rapidly. “Oh! I’m ashamed of myself,” he said, “you don’t know how ashamed. I think the place had something to do with it, and then one was tired and nervy a bit, I suppose; not,” he hastily added, “that I want to make excuses, for there really aren’t any. I just leave it with you. I was a beast. I promise never to break out again.”
How could a man! she thought, looking at him, and then, how blind men were. Why couldn’t they see that it wasn’t the sugar and honey that women were continually wanting, or, at any rate, the right sort of woman!
She glanced at him angrily. “We’d better leave the thing there,” she said. “For heaven’s sake spare us any more scenes. You were rude—abominably—I’m glad you’ve had the grace at last to come and tell me so.”