"You see, I dare say, Cyprian may be common-sensically right about my not coming here," she suggested with some hesitation.
"You stood up to his prejudices for my sake? You defied him for me?"
"I did nothing of the sort," contradicted Ferlie, hotly aware that that was exactly what she had done, and wondering why. If Digby took a day longer over his wretched picture she felt that, in the course of it, she should heave a stone at it and him.
She was angry with Cyprian for having upset her pleasure in it, angry with herself for not having explained accurately what was happening during the afternoons she spent in Digby Maur's garden. But—poor Digby again!—she all but laughed at the pathetic figure he cut with the splotches of brilliant paint on his forehead where he had run his fingers through his sleek hair in despairing moments connected with hers.
Her expression, as she regarded him in his neglected and, to the Club folk, unrecognizable state, reconsidering the ill-mated stock from which he sprang, became maternally tender.
He drew his brush with a last sweep across the canvas background and flung it down joyfully.
"Finished."
She smiled back, sensing with her uncanny insight all the delight of achievement tingling in his weary limbs.
That he should mis-read her sympathy was inevitable. The time was ripe for a climax of some sort on his side.
... His hot kisses scorched her throat and her disgustedly closed eyes. His arms imprisoning her were hungry.