But again Penelope felt suddenly afraid—of herself, perhaps, rather than of him. 'No, no!' she said hurriedly; 'it would be wrong, unkind, to your old friend—to Mrs. Delacour.'
CHAPTER XIII
'But there's one happy moment when the mind
Is left unguarded, waiting to be kind,
Which the wise lover understanding right,
Steals in like day upon the wings of light.'
I
The absence of Mrs. Robinson from the villa, even for only a few hours, afforded a curious relief, a distinct lightening of the atmosphere, to all those—if one important exception be made, that of Mrs. Mote—whom she had left at Monk's Eype on the afternoon of her expedition to Kingpole Farm.
Penelope's unquietude of mind had gradually affected all her guests. Even her mother, the person of whom she saw least, had become dimly aware that all was not as it should be, and, while not in any way as yet connecting her daughter with Sir George Downing, she regarded him as an evil and alien influence.