The effect which these words had upon Harold would have surprised her, could she have known it. They were so like her, so absolutely herself, that they brought back the past with a rush; and it seemed such a hollow pretense to suppose that they were separated, and compelled to be as strangers to each other, that he came nearer to losing his head than he had done yet.
Ignoring Inkling’s fawnings and plaints, he said suddenly:
“I am forgetting that Martha is waiting for me”; and then, changing his tone, and speaking in French, he added:
“May I take you to your carriage, princess?”
She answered him in French, as prompt and easy as himself. She thanked him for his offer, but declined it, saying that her servant would let her know when her carriage arrived. She added that she was not ready to leave the atelier yet, as she had lost time, which she must now make up.
He bowed in silence, turned, and walked away. Inkling made a weak effort to follow him, but was scared into a sudden and humiliated return by the imperious command of his mistress. The little creature looked so ridiculously distressed, as he sat on his haunches near her, with his ears dropped and his tail nerveless and still beneath him, that Sonia’s irritation deepened as she put up her brushes and paints; and when she had washed her hands and was emptying the basin, she yielded to a sudden impulse and dashed half the meager supply of water over him.
“There, you little idiot!” she said crossly. “That’s for your ridiculous nonsense in trying to make out that I care one pin for him, or anything about him. I’ll very soon convince him that I don’t; and if ever you dare to act in such a way again, I’ll sell you to the concierge on the spot!”
Inkling gave every indication of a complete understanding of this threat, which had the effect of bringing him at once to a state of cowed dejection.
XIV
Sonia said nothing to Martha of that meeting and conversation at the atelier; and as Martha made no reference to it, she understood that Harold also had been silent on the subject.