“Do,” he said, and rose.
Before he could reach the door, Vitoria had entered, closing it carefully behind her. He could see that she was in her student’s blouse; tendrils of her hair, slightly disarrayed, curled about the nape of her white neck; her delicate nostrils were extended and her manner strangely quiet.
“This is good of you,” he gratefully began. “I didn’t expect——”
“What is this that you have been doing?”
Her tone, though low, was hasty. Cartaret bewilderedly realized that she was angry. Before he could reply, she had repeated her question:
“Sir, what is this that you have been doing?”
“I don’t understand.” He had drawn away from her, his face unmistakably expressive of his puzzled pain.
“You have been—— oh, that I should live to say it!—you have been giving money to my maid.”
He drew back farther now. He was detected; he was ashamed.
“Yes,” he confessed; “I thought—You see, she gave me to understand that you were—were poor.”