Ferlie laid this sheet before Cyprian, without comment.
"Swine," was his exact expression.
"Do you really feel like that, or is it only pose?"
"Pose? How do you suppose any average man would feel?"
"You're not the average man."
At the moment neither was his face good to look upon. She removed the letter and deserted the subject. And prayed quite a lot more for Clifford's weakened soul.
At the beginning of the next Cold Weather her mother died.
"We had drifted apart since my marriage," she told Cyprian, remorsefully tearful, "But, at the end of the first year, when I realized that things were hopeless and that Clifford and I must separate, I could not conquer the feeling that she should have been capable of protecting me instead of selling me to a title that had existed too long. After all, I was so very young to throw in my lot with any man."
"I got no thanks for trying to protect you from this one," said Cyprian.
She smiled up at him with wet lashes.