“Where’s Sybil?”
For a moment she did not answer, and then quite boldly she said, “She’s ridden over with Jean to take Sabine home.”
“You know I don’t approve of that.” He had come through the hall now and was standing near her.
“It can’t do any harm.”
“That’s been said before....”
“Why are you so suspicious, Anson, of your own child?” She had no desire to argue with him. She wanted only to be left in peace, to go away to her room and lie there alone in the darkness, for she knew now that Michael was not coming.
“Olivia,” Anson was saying, “come inside for a moment. I want to talk to you.”
“Very well ... but please don’t be disagreeable. I’m very tired.”
“I shan’t be disagreeable.... I only want to settle something.”
She knew then that he meant to be very disagreeable, and she told herself that she would not listen to him; she would think of something else while he was speaking—a trick she had learned long ago. In the drawing-room she sat quietly and waited for him to begin. Standing by the mantelpiece, he appeared more tired and yellow than usual. She knew that he had worked on his book; she knew that he had poured all his vitality, all his being, into it; but as she watched him her imagination again played her the old trick of showing her Michael standing there in his place ... defiant, a little sulky, and filled with a slow, steady, inexhaustible force.