She was full of her reasons, evidently. Rumours of them, so to say, drove over her eyes, showed cloudily and angrily there. Her beautiful mouth looked cruel—as if she saw death and took joy in it. “I think he is horrible,” she said. “I think he is like a beast. He doesn't love me at all until he comes here—and then he expects me—Oh, don't ask me to talk about it.” She stopped her tongue, but not her thought. That thronged the gates of her lips. She hesitated, fighting the entry; but the words came, shocked and dreadful. “He wants me, to ravage me—like a beast.”
Chevenix began to stammer. “Oh, I say, you mustn't—Oh, don't talk like that—”
The door opened, and Ingram came in.
He looked from one to the other, sharply. “Hulloa,” he said. “What are you two about in here?”
Sanchia looked at the fire, and put her foot close to it, to be warmed. “Tea-party,” said Chevenix. “That's it, Nevile.” He nodded sagely at his host, and saw his brow clear. Ingram shut the door and came into the room, to a chair. “That's all right,” he said. “I hope it was a livelier one than mine. That old Devereux was on her high-stepper. I'm sick of being trampled. I thought, though, that you had been having words. You looked like it.”
Sanchia said, smiling in her queer way, “Oh, dear no. Mr. Chevenix is much too kind for that. He's been talking very nicely to me. He's been charming.”
“Oh, come, Sancie—” cried the brisk young man, quite recovered.
Ingram, in a stare, said, “Yes, Sancie, you may trust him. He's a friend of ours.”
“I do trust him,” she said.
Chevenix said, “I shall go out on that. I declare my innings. Good-bye, you two. I'll go and pacify the Devereux.” He hoped against hope that he might have warmed her.