Grace, increasingly uncomfortable, started when Mrs. Trenton addressed her directly.
“Miss Durland, if you see too much of Mr. Trenton you will find him a singularly unreasonable person. But,” with a shrug, “all men have the ancient conceit of their sex superiority.”
She had drawled the “if you see too much” in a manner to give the phrase a peculiar insinuating emphasis. Grace caught its significance at once and her cheeks burned; but she was less angry at the woman than at Trenton, whose face betrayed no resentment. She rose and walked to the door.
“Dear me, don’t run away!” Mrs. Trenton exclaimed. “Miss Reynolds will be back shortly. She was called away to some hospital—I think it was—to see a friend. Do wait. There will be tea, I think.”
Trenton was on his feet. No man’s mind is ever quite so agile or discerning as a woman’s. He had just caught up with the phrase that had angered Grace.
“I have kept my word,” he said, rising and addressing his wife directly. “When I promised you that if I ever met a woman I felt I could care for I would tell you, I was in earnest. At your own suggestion and in perfect good faith I asked Miss Durland to come here.”
“My dear Ward! You were always a man of your word!” she said with a hint of mockery in her voice. “I assure you that I’m delighted to meet Miss Durland. She’s very charming, really.”
“I don’t intend that you shall forget yourself!” he said sharply. “Your conduct since you came into this room has been contemptible!”
“I’m most contrite! Do forgive me, Miss Durland.”
She lay back in her chair in a pose of exaggerated ease and lazily turned her head to look at Grace.