“I dare say your affections will include the whole family before you get through with us.”
This meeting was not to his taste. He had taken advantage of the first opportunity to be alone with his father’s wife, and now that they were together he was failing to give the right tone to the interview. It was proving disagreeable and he did not know how to change its key. It irritated him to find that Mrs. Craighill was calmly giving it direction.
“Wayne, dear,” she said, her arm thrown over the back of her low chair, “you came home to see me and now you are not a bit nice.”
“I came home because it’s home,” he replied doggedly.
“But you haven’t been home at this hour within the memory of anybody on the place. I asked the maids—very discreetly—what time Mr. Wayne came home and they were embarrassed. You cut the Club for me this afternoon; I’m not going to have it any other way.”
He rose and walked the length of the room, and when he had gained the bay window he looked back at her. She did not move and her head, the pretty arch of her neck, the graceful lines of her figure brought him quickly to her side. He took her hands roughly and drew her to her feet.
“Yes, I came home when I did to see you alone,” he cried eagerly. “You knew I would come; you counted on it; you were sure of it!”
“What a mind-reader you are!” she laughed, looking languidly up at him.
He clasped her hands in both his own, and peered into her face. Her eyes questioned him long; they held him away from her as though by physical force. Then the colour surged suddenly in her face and throat as he bent toward her lips and she cried out softly and freed herself.
“No! No! Not like that!”