This touched Winifred, and, struggling with the lump in her throat, she said, unsteadily: “I am not very well to-day; if you will leave me now, and come perhaps some other time, you will oblige me.”
Carshaw strode nearer and caught her shoulder.
“But what a tone to me! Have I done something wrong, I wonder? Winnie, what is it?”
“I have told you I am not very well. I do not desire your company—to-day.”
“Whew! What majesty! It must be something outrageous. But what? Won’t you be dear and kind, and tell me?”
“You have done nothing.”
“Yes, I have. I think I can guess. I spoke of Helen Tower yesterday as of an old sweetheart—was that it? And it is all jealousy. Surely I didn’t say much. What on earth did I say? That she was like a Gainsborough; that she was rather a beauty; that she was elancée at twenty-two. But I didn’t mean any harm. Why, it’s jealousy!”
At this Winifred drew herself up to discharge a thunderbolt, and though she winced at the Olympian effort, managed to say distinctly:
“There can be no jealousy where there is no love.”
Carshaw stood silent, momentarily stunned, like one before whom a thunderbolt has really exploded. At last, looking at the pattern of a frayed carpet, he said humbly enough: