“You wish me to go there alone?” She could guess at the scalding spot beneath his armour-plate.
“I should love to go with you,” she said, “if—if it could be managed.”
“I may mention to you,” he said coldly, “that you will not find an old acquaintance there. Since his mother’s death my young relative, Tristram Duplessis, has bestirred himself. He has sold the cottage.”
She had not been prepared for an attack in flank, and blenched before it. Then she told her fib. “My reason against going with you had nothing to do with Mr. Duplessis,” she said; and, watching her, he did not believe her.
He turned to his papers. “It shall be as you wish, my love,” he said. “I will write to Constantia. It may well be that I shall not care to resume a broken habit. Are you going up to dress? If so, and if you should happen to see Wilbraham, would you tell him that I am ready?”
She hovered about his studious back, as if on the brink of speech; but thought better of it and went slowly out of the room. Intensely conscious of her going, he cowered at his desk, looking sideways—until he heard the door close. Then he began to read, with lips pressed close together.
In the hall Mrs. Germain almost ran into the arms of Wilbraham, who, scarlet in the face and wet as with rain, was racing to his room.
“By jove, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Germain!”
“You only made me jump,” she laughed. “Have you been playing all this time?”
“I know, I know! It was Gunner’s fault, upon my honour.”