Then—silence!—and afterwards a few sarcastic interrogations, quick, practical, hard to answer—the mounting menace of that thunderbrow, extravagant, and magnificent,—the trembling of her own limbs. And at last that sharp sentence, like lightning from the cloud, as to 'whims and follies' that no sane man could hope to unravel, which had suddenly nerved her to be angry.
'Oh! I was odious—odious!'—she thought to herself, hiding her face in her hands.
His answering indignation seemed to clatter through her room.
'And you really expect me to do your bidding calmly,—to play this ridiculous part?—to leave my cousin and you in these wilds—at this time of year—she in the state of health that you describe—to face this heat, and the journey home, without comforts, without assistance? It is a great responsibility, Miss Foster, that you take, with me, and with her! I refuse to yield it to you, till I have given you at least a little further time for consideration. I shall stay here a few hours longer. If you change your mind, send to me—I am with Father Benecke. If not—good-bye! But I warn you that I will be no party to further mystification. It is undesirable for us all. I shall write at once to General Delafield-Muir, and to my aunt. I think it will be also my duty to communicate with your friends in London or in Boston.'
'Mr. Manisty!—let me beg of you to leave my personal affairs alone!'
She felt again the proud flush upon her cheek, the shock of their two wills, the mingled anguish and relief as she saw him turn upon his heel, and go.
Ah! how unready, how gauche she had shown herself! From the beginning instead of conciliating she had provoked him. But how to make a plausible story out of their adventure at all? There was the deciding, the fatal difficulty! Her face burnt anew as she tried to think his thoughts, to imagine all that he might or must guess; as she remembered the glow of swift instinctive triumph with which he had recognised her, and realised from it some of the ideas that must have been his travelling companions all these weeks.
No matter: let him think what he pleased! She sat there in the gathering dark; at one moment, feeling herself caught in the grip of a moral necessity that no rebellion could undo; and the next, childishly catching to her heart the echoes and images of that miserable half-hour.
No wonder he had been angry!
'Lucy!'