“Of course you will not mention it to anyone, not even to Horace. It has nothing to do with us.”
Mr. Barter bowed; his face wore the expression it so often wore in school on Sunday mornings.
“H'm!” he said again.
It flashed through Mrs. Pendyce that this man with the heavy jowl and menacing eyes, who sat so square on that flimsy chair, knew something. It was as though he had answered:
“This is not a matter for women; you will be good enough to leave it to me.”
With the exception of those few words of Lady Malden's, and the recollection of George's face when he had said, “Oh yes, I see her now and then,” she had no evidence, no knowledge, nothing to go on; but she knew from some instinctive source that her son was Mrs. Bellew's lover.
So, with terror and a strange hope, she saw Gregory entering the room.
“Perhaps,” she thought, “he will make Grig stop it.”
She poured out Gregory's tea, followed Bee and Cecil Tharp into the conservatory, and left the two men together: