Sara's eyes blazed.
“She shall explain,” she exclaimed impetuously, and she swung aside, meaning to follow Elisabeth and demand an explanation of the insult. But Garth checked her.
“No,” he said decidedly. “Please do nothing—say nothing. For Audrey's sake we can't have a scene—here.”
“But it's unpardonable——”
“Do as I say,” he insisted. “Believe me, you will only make things worse if you interfere. I will make my apologies to Audrey and go. For my sake, Sara”—he looked at her intently—“go back and face it out. Behave as if nothing had happened.”
Compelled, in spite of herself, by his insistence, Sara reluctantly assented and, leaving him, made her way slowly back to the others.
A disjointed buzz of talk sprayed up against her ears. Every one rushed into conversation, making valiant, if quite fruitless efforts to behave as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, while, a little apart from the main group, Elisabeth stood alone.
Meanwhile Trent sought out his hostess, and together they moved away, pausing at last beneath the canopy of trees.
“No words can quite meet what has just occurred,” he said formally. “I can only express my regret that my presence here should have occasioned such a contretemps.”
Although the whole brief scene had been utterly incomprehensible to her, Audrey intuitively sensed the bitter hurt underlying the harshly spoken words, and the outraged hostess was instantly submerged in the friend.