A deep and bitter sigh quivered over the wife's lips, but she parried the question with a complaint:
"You are always insinuating some fault against my darling. Your heart is cold to her, Edmund."
He put his arms around her, and kissed the still lovely face with the passion of a lover.
"At least it is not cold to you, my darling!" he cried; and pleased at his love-making, she momentarily forgot Roma, and nestled confidingly against his breast.
He was glad that she could not know his secret thoughts, for they ran stubbornly:
"She is right. My heart is indeed cold to Roma. I shall be glad when Devereaux marries her and takes her away, and I do not believe it will break my wife's heart, either; for she seemed to bear it well enough when her daughter was away at boarding school those three years."
Meanwhile Sophie went away most reluctantly with her message, thinking:
"I am sure Miss Roma will not thank me for breaking up her tête-à-tête with her lover, for, of course, she is staying out just to keep him all to herself. But I cannot disobey Mrs. Clarke's commands, though I'll saunter along as slowly as I can, so as to give Miss Roma a little more time."
Sophie was an intelligent and good-hearted girl, and might have been invaluable to Roma, if she could have appreciated such a treasure; but by her selfishness and arrogance she had completely antagonized the young woman, who only stayed, as she had frankly told Liane, for Mrs. Clarke's sake.