"Well, of course I didn't altogether believe that you would really be such a fool, and wreck all your prospects!" said Letty, violently, her feverish eyes intent the while on her husband and on the thin fingers once more busied with the cigarette. "There now! I think we have had enough of this! It doesn't seem to have led to much, does it?"
"No," said George, coolly; "but perhaps we shall come to see more alike in time. I don't want to tyrannise—only to show you what I think. Shall I carry up your cloak for you?"
He approached her punctiliously. Letty gathered her wraps upon her arm in a disdainful silence, warding him off with a gesture. As he opened the door for her she turned upon him:
"You talk of my extravagance, but you never seem to consider what you might do to make up to me for the burden of being your mother's relation! You expect me to put up with the annoyance and ridicule of belonging to her—and to let her spend all your money besides. I give you fair warning that I sha'n't do it! I shall try and spend it on my side, that she sha'n't get it."
She was perfectly conscious that she was behaving like a vixenish child, but she could not restrain herself. This strange new sense that she could neither bend nor conquer him was becoming more than she could bear.
George looked at her, half inclined to shake her first, and then insist on making friends. He was conscious that he could probably assert himself with success if he tried. But the impulse failed him. He merely said, without any apparent temper, "Then I shall have to see if I can invent some way of protecting both myself and you."
She flung through the door, and almost ran through the long passage to the stairs, in a sobbing excitement. A sudden thought struck George as he stood looking after her. He pursued her, caught her at the foot of the stairs, and held her arm strongly.
"Letty! I wasn't to tell you, but I choose to break my promise. Don't be too cruel, my dear, or too angry. My mother is dying!"
She scanned him deliberately, the flushed face—the signs of strongly felt yet strongly suppressed emotion. The momentary consciousness flew through her that he was at bottom a very human, impressionable creature—that if she could but have broken down and thrown herself on his neck, this miserable evening might open for both of them a new way. But her white-heat of passion was too strong. She pushed him away.
"She made you believe that this morning? Then I'd better hurry up at Ferth; for of course it only means that there will be a fresh list of debts directly!"