"I am ready to go home," said a voice at Tressady's elbow.
Something in the intonation surprised him, and he turned quickly.
"By all means," he said, throwing an astonished look at his wife, who had come up to him on Lord Cathedine's arm. "I will go and look for the carriage."
What was the matter, he asked himself as he ran downstairs—what was the meaning of Letty's manner and expression?
But by the time he had sent for the carriage the answer had suggested itself. No doubt Harding Watton had given Letty news of that hansom in Pall Mall, and no doubt, also—He shrugged his shoulders in annoyance. The notion of having to explain and excuse himself was particularly unpalatable. What a fool he had been not to tell Letty of his East End adventure on their way to Queen's Gate.
He was standing in a little crowd at the foot of the stairs when Letty swept past him in search of her wraps. He smiled at her, but she held her head erect as though she did not see him.
So there was to be a scene. George felt the rise of a certain inner excitement. Perhaps it was as well. There were a good many things he wanted to say.
At the same time, the Cathedine episode had filled him with a new disgust for the violences and brutalities to which the very intimacy of the marriage relation may lead. If a scene there was to be, he meant to be more or less frank, and at the same time to keep both himself and her within bounds.
* * * * *
"You can't deny that you made a secret of it from me," cried Letty, angrily. "I asked you what had been doing in the House, and you never let me suspect that you had been anywhere else the whole evening."