Tressady was walking up and down with folded arms. He paused at her challenge.
"Why didn't I tell you? Do you remember that I wanted to talk to you yesterday morning—that I suggested you should come and hear my speech—and you wouldn't have it? You didn't care about politics, you said, and weren't going to pretend.—What made me go over? Well—I changed my mind—to some extent," he said slowly.
"To some extent?" She laughed scornfully, mimicking his voice. "To some extent! Are you going to try and make me believe there was nothing else?"
"No. As I walked home to-night I determined not to conceal the truth from you. Opinions counted for something. I voted—yes, taking all things together, I think it may be said that I voted honestly. But I should never have taken the part I did but—" he hesitated, then went on deliberately—"but that I had come to have a strong—wish—to give Lady Maxwell her heart's desire. She has been my friend. I repaid her what I could."
Letty, half beside herself, flung at him a shower of taunts hysterical and hardly intelligible. He showed no emotion. "Of course," he said disdainfully, "if you choose to repeat this to others you will do us both great damage. I suppose I can't help it. For anybody else in the world—for Mrs. Watton and her son, for instance—I have a perfectly good political defence, and I shall defend myself stoutly. I have no intention whatever of playing the penitent in public."
And what, she asked him, striving with all her might to regain the self-command which could alone enable her to wound him, to get the mastery—what was to be her part in this little comedy? Did he expect her to put up with this charming situation—to take what Marcella Maxwell left?
"No," he said abruptly. "You have no right to reproach me or her in any vulgar way. But I recognise that the situation is impossible. I shall probably leave Parliament and London."
She stared at him in speechless passion, then suddenly gathered up her fan and gloves and fled past him.
He caught at her, and stopped her, holding her satin skirt.
"My poor child!" he cried in remorse; "bear with me, Letty—and forgive me!"