'Oughtn't you—to finish the book? You could—couldn't you? And Mrs.
Burgoyne has been so disappointed. It makes one sad to see her.'
Her words gave her courage. She looked at him again with a grave, friendly air.
Manisty drew himself suddenly erect. After a pause, he said in another voice: 'I thought I had explained to you before that the book and I had reached a cul de sac—that I no longer saw my way with it.'
Lucy thought of the criticisms upon it she had heard at the Embassy, and was uncomfortably silent.
'Miss Foster!' said Manisty suddenly, with determination.
Lucy's heart stood still.
'I believe I see the thought in your mind. Dismiss it! There have been rumours in Rome—in which even perhaps my aunt has believed. They are unjust—both to Eleanor and to me. She would be the first to tell you so.'
'Of course,' said Lucy hurriedly, 'of course,'—and then did not know what to say, torn as she was between her Puritan dread of falsehood, her natural woman's terror of betraying Eleanor, and her burning consciousness of the man and the personality beside her.
'No!—you still doubt. You have heard some gossip and you believe it.'
He threw away the cigarette with which he had been playing, and came to sit down on the curving marble bench beside her.