Ogilvie, who had been seated, now rose, and went to the window. He looked out with a dreary expression on his face.
“You know as well as I do the reasons why it would be best for you not to go to Grayleigh Manor at present,” he said. “You can easily write to give an excuse. Remember, we were both asked, and the fact that I cannot leave town is sufficient reason for you to decline.”
“I am going,” said Mrs. Ogilvie. Her eyes, which were large and dark, flashed with defiance. Ogilvie looked at her with a frown between his brows.
“Is that your last word?” he inquired.
“It is, I go on Saturday. If you were not so disagreeable and disobliging you could easily come with me, but you never do anything to please me.”
“Nor you to please me, Mildred,” he was about to say, but he restrained himself. After a pause he said gently, “There is one thing that makes the situation almost unbearable.”
“And what is that?” she asked.
“The attitude of little Sibyl toward us both. She thinks us—Mildred, she thinks us perfect. What will happen to the child when her eyes are opened?”
“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” was Mrs. Ogilvie’s flippant remark. “But that attitude is much encouraged by you. You make her morbid and sensitive.”
“Morbid! Sibyl morbid! There never was a more open-hearted, frank, healthy creature. Did you not hear her say at dinner that she would not be a flabby good girl for anything? Now, I must tell you that perhaps wrong as that speech was, it rejoiced my heart.”