"Misled me! As though you had misled me, as though you could mislead me--Ronald."
Mr Ferguson was a cool and a courageous man. But his courage almost failed him then. He felt that he was face to face with the most difficult and the most delicate task that he had ever had to face in all his life. The look which was in this woman's eyes, which was on her face, which was, so to speak, all over her, was, to him, nothing less than terrible. He would rather have encountered a look of the deadliest hatred than the love-light which was in her eyes. As a rule, in his way he was a diplomatist. Now, his diplomacy wholly failed him. He struggled from blunder on to blunder.
"I feel that--that, in this matter, I may not, myself, have been wholly free from blame--"
"Blame? You have not been free from blame? I will not have you say that you have been to blame in anything, I will not let you say it, Ronald."
"But--"
"But me no buts! If there has been blame, then it has been wholly mine. But, Ronald, you will not blame me--now?"
"If you will permit me to explain--"
"Oh, yes, I will permit you to explain. Will you do it standing up? I would rather, since you ask my permission, that you make your explanation sitting at my side. I would rather, Ronald, have it so?"
It was maddening. Did she mean to compel him to play the brute?
"Lady Griswold, I--I must really beg you to hear me, without interruption, to an end."