“Let’s be quiet for a bit. You and me. I want to think things out. I must get some kind of work—”
“My tea-parties won’t prevent you,” said Joyce.
She sat up in bed, and her cheeks flushed.
“Don’t let’s get back to the old arguments, Bertram. I give you a free hand. I’m not jealous of any of your friends—though I think that Socialist creature, Christy, has an evil influence on you. I insist on having my own friends, and meeting them when and how I like. If you don’t trust me, it’s an insult to my sense of honour.”
“My dear Kid!”
Bertram spoke with profound humility and compunction. Of course he trusted her. There was no harm whatever in anything she did. He knew perfectly well that her comradeship with Kenneth Murless was straight and clean and sweet—although he hated it because of his jealous love of her, hated all the people who surrounded her and edged him out of that absolute monopoly for which he craved.
“I shall ask Kenneth to tea to-morrow,” said Joyce in a determined way, “and, then, any of the crowd who want to see me. I’m tired of this sick-room business. Never again, I hope, after this experience!”
“Ask any one you like,” said Bertram. He bent over to kiss her, but she turned away from him fretfully.
For a moment he stood looking down on her, hurt by her quick movement to avoid his caress, and by the words she had spoken, but filled with tenderness because of his love for her. He stood like that in silence, when there was a tap at the door, and the nurse came in with Joyce’s mother, Lady Ottery, who went quickly to the bedside and embraced her daughter.
“My poor darling!”