In the hall, through the open door of the drawing-room, she could see the table laid for tea, and Gertrude sitting at it by herself, waiting for them. His sister and the children had gone. Somehow she knew that he had made them go. They would come back, he explained, with the carriage that was to take her to the station, and they would say good-bye to her before she went.
He evaded the drawing-room door and led the way into his library; and she knew that he meant to have the last hour with her alone.
She paused on the threshold. She knew that if she followed him she would never get away.
"Aren't we going," said she, "to have tea with Miss Collett?"
"Would you rather?"
"Much rather," said she.
"Very well, just as you like," he said stiffly.
He was annoyed again. All through tea-time he sulked, while Jane sustained a difficult conversation with Miss Collett.
Miss Collett had lost much of her beautiful serenity. She was still a charming hostess, but there was a palpable effort about her charm. She looked as if she were beginning to suffer from the strain of Brodrick in his present mood.
What Brodrick's mood was, or was beginning to be, Jane could no longer profess to be unaware. While she talked thin talk to Gertrude about the superiority of Putney Heath to Wimbledon Park, and of Brodrick's house to the houses of the other Brodricks, she was thinking, "This woman was happy in his house before I came. He would have been happy with her if I hadn't come. It would be kinder of me if I were to keep out of it, and let her have her chance."