"I was under the impression that everyone knew," she said. "Pater and Mater certainly do, and I assumed they had told you long ago. Please believe that I have never had the least intention of sailing under false colours."
There flashed across Lancelot's mind a memory of a chance word spoken by Harry Helston the first time he saw Melicent upon Tod's Trush: "It's not a pretty story, and I daresay would do the poor child no good in a narrow, provincial circle?"
There were passages in Millie's life of which he knew nothing, but of which, apparently, the odious Otis knew much. It was a rankling thought.
Captain Brooke broke the silence.
"There is one consolation," he observed coolly. "Otis is such a wholesale liar, he'll soon get found out. It might be doing him a kindness if I gave him a hint to keep himself in the background. I know enough about him to make General Ayres regret his hospitality. Whatever you do, keep clear of him, Lady Burmester. If I may count myself enough your friend to give you a hint, avoid being introduced to the fellow. He's not fit to mix with ladies."
"Really, Captain Brooke? I am extremely obliged," said Lady Burmester gratefully.
"Keep clear of the Ayres party, mother," said Lance. "Brooke's right, he's a beast. Come, Melicent, I am going to start the sports now."
He spoke irritably, and Melicent silently walked away with him, conscious of a burning, fiery resentment against him, his mother, herself, and Fate generally.
Her pride was cruelly wounded, and her conscience reiterated, "Serve you right!" She knew that had she really loved Lancelot she would have known no peace until she had told him all about Hubert. She ought to have done so. Now some kind of explanation was unavoidable. It was impossible but that Lance should return to the subject. She now felt certain that Otis would tell everybody who would listen some garbled version of her flight from her stepmother's house. Vaguely she began to realise how far it was in his power to injure her; and she knew that, had Lance been in possession of the actual facts, he would have had no power to injure her at all. She had left her lover in the position of being unable to contradict effectively anything that might be said.
The figure she must cut was not a dignified one. If she broke off the engagement, it could but seem that she did so because she was found out, and dreaded further revelations. If she confessed to Lance, he must feel that she did so only because concealment was no longer practicable, to say nothing of the suspicions which she must arouse by the mere fact of not having spoken before. She saw that, whatever she did, she must lower herself, perhaps fatally, in the eyes of her lover. She positively shrank from the abyss before her. She could not see how she could avoid public humiliation, and what was worse, she must sink in the eyes of the Helstons too. They had loved, shielded, trusted her. She had wilfully gone her own way, keeping from them all that most nearly concerned her, locking her heart, hiding it away from them....