“But if there is a good wind this afternoon you are not to forget the Carstangs' sail. They will be here only a day or two, and you mustn't neglect them. Mrs. Carstang told me if I saw you first to invite you.”
Maurice met the girl's smiling eyes, and the ice of her hand went through him.
“Isn't Mrs. Carstang lovely! As soon as I saw you come in last night, I knew she was—the other woman.”
“You didn't look at me.”
“I can see with my eyelashes. Do you know, I have often thought I should love her if I were a man!”
There was not a trace of jealousy in Lily's gentle and perfect manner.
“You resemble her,” said Maurice. “You have the blond head, and the same features—only a little more delicate.”
“I have been in her parlor all morning,” said Lily. “We talked about you. I am certain, Maurice, Mrs. Carstang is in her heart still faithful to you.”
That she should thrust the old love on him as a kind of solace seemed the cruelest of all. There was no cognizance of anything except this one maddening girl. She absorbed him. She wrung the strength of his manhood from him as tribute, such tribute as everybody paid her, even Mrs. Carstang. He sat like a rock, tranced by the strong control which he kept over himself.
“I must go,” said Lily. She had not sat down at all. Maurice shuffled his papers.