His look, smiling, provocative, drove home his shaft.
'I saw you overthrown. The great tradition swept upon you. You bowed to it,—you felt!'
She made no reply. Far within she was conscious of a kind of tremor. The personality beside her seemed to be laying an intimate, encroaching hand upon her own, and her maidenliness shrank before it.
She threw herself hastily upon other subjects. Presently, he found to his surprise that she was speaking to him of his book.
'It would be so sad if it were not finished,' she said timidly. 'Mrs.
Burgoyne would feel it so.'
His expression changed.
'You think Mrs. Burgoyne cares about it so much?'
'But she worked so hard for it!'—cried Lucy, indignant with something in his manner, though she could not have defined what. Her mind, indeed, was full of vague and generous misgivings on the subject of Mrs. Burgoyne. First she had been angry with Mr. Manisty for what had seemed to her neglect and ingratitude. Now she was somehow dissatisfied with herself too.
'She worked too hard,' said Manisty gravely. 'It is a good thing the pressure has been taken off. Have you found out yet, Miss Foster, what a remarkable woman my cousin is?'
He turned to her with a sharp look of inquiry.