"I tell you what it is, Honor," he broke out hotly, "you're going too far altogether. Here has Maurice been letting half Dalhousie know that he couldn't find you anywhere; and the last dance—was mine. Heaven knows where you buried yourselves. I didn't attempt to look. Lenox has no business to monopolise you in this way. Woman-hater, indeed!"
"It was not his fault," she flashed out, in an impulse more generous than wise: but her blood was as quick to take fire as his own.
"Then it was yours, which is fifty times worse."
Honor lifted her head with a superb dignity of gesture.
"As you please," she said quietly. "It is useless to attempt explanation here, or anywhere, till you are more . . like yourself."
Returning couples were by now besieging the doorway; and she passed on into the ballroom, her head still high, her lips compressed, lest others should note their tendency to quiver. A woman who loves the man of her choice with every fibre of her being does not readily forget, though she may forgive, his first rough words to her.
Honor was claimed at once by Kenneth Malcolm, a favourite partner, boy though he was. But the keen edge of her interest was blunted. She wanted one thing only to be alone with Theo; to set his mind at rest: and those 'separated selves,' who drew her like nothing else on earth, became of a sudden mere voluble obstructions between herself and her desire.
Half an hour later she came up to him, where he stood, laughing and talking in a group of men.
"I am tired, Theo," she said in a low tone. "Mr Maurice is getting my dandy for me. But don't come away if you'd rather stop on."
Their eyes locked for an instant.