"Oh, but you can prevent it--you must!" She clasped her hands.
"No," he said, slowly, "I fear you must accept it. Their relation was a matter of old habit. Like other things old and frail, it bears shock and disturbance badly."
She sank back in her chair, raising her hands and letting them fall with a gesture of despair.
One little stroke of punishment--just one! Surely there was no cruelty in that. Sir Wilfrid caught the Horatian lines dancing through his head:
"Just oblige me and touch
With your wand that minx Chloe--
But don't hurt her much!"
Yet here was Jacob interposing!--Jacob, who had evidently been watching his mild attempt at castigation, no doubt with disapproval. Lover or no lover--what did the man expect? Under his placid exterior, Sir Wilfrid's mind was, in truth, hot with sympathy for the old and helpless.
Delafield bent over Miss Le Breton.
"You will go and rest? Evelyn advises it."