Loder made no movement. His mind was unpleasantly upset. It was nearly a fortnight since he had seen Lillian, and in the interval her attitude had changed, and the change puzzled him. It might mean the philosophy of a woman who, knowing herself without adequate weapons, withdraws from a combat that has proved fruitless; or it might imply the merely catlike desire to toy with a certainty. He looked quickly at the delicate face, the green eyes somewhat obliquely set, the unreliable mouth; and instantly he inclined to the latter theory. The conviction that she possessed the telegram filled him suddenly, and with it came the desire to put his belief to the test—to know beyond question whether her smiling unconcern meant malice or mere entertainment.
“When you first came into the room,” he said, quietly, “you said 'I thought it would be you.' Why did you say that?”
Again she smiled—the smile that might be malicious or might be merely amused. “Oh,” she answered at last, “I only meant that though I had been told Jack Chilcote wanted me, it wasn't Jack Chilcote I expected to see!”
After her statement there was a pause. Loder's position was difficult. Instinctively convinced that, strong in the possession of her proof, she was enjoying his tantalized discomfort, he yet craved the actual evidence that should set his suspicions to rest. Acting upon the desire, he made a new beginning.
“Do you know why I came?” he asked.
Lillian looked up innocently. “It's so hard to be certain of anything in this world,” she said. “But one is always at liberty to guess.”
Again he was perplexed. Her attitude was not quite the attitude of one who controls the game, and yet—He looked at her with a puzzled scrutiny. Women for him had always spelled the incomprehensible; he was at his best, his strongest, his surest in the presence of men. Feeling his disadvantage, yet determined to gain his end, he made a last attempt.
“How did you amuse yourself at Grosvenor Square this morning before Eve came to you?” he asked. The effort was awkwardly blunt, but it was direct.
Lillian was buttoning her glove. She did not raise her head as he spoke, but her fingers paused in their task. For a second she remained motionless, then she looked up slowly.
“Oh,” she said, sweetly, “so I was right in my guess? You did come to find out whether I sat in the morning-room with my hands in my lap—or wandered about in search of entertainment?”