“I detest that man.”
Decourcy, who was looking somewhat preoccupied, made no answer, until she gave his arm a little jerk and said, with the petulance of a child:
“What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you speak?”
“What can I say, except that I feel deeply sorry for poor Gaston, and appropriately grateful that I do not happen to be in his place.”
He spoke in his softest tones, but Mrs. Vere knew instinctively that her spell was, for the time being, broken. Well! it had been broken before, she reflected, and she had always succeeded in mending it, and she felt confident she could do so again.
Meantime, as Margaret and Louis walked away, to look for Mrs. Gaston, the former said:
“Was it not rather odd that Mrs. Vere didn’t ask you to join her party?”
“She did,” said Louis. “She wrote me a note, which was forwarded to me in New York.”
“And what did you do?” asked Margaret.
“Excused myself on the score of another engagement.”