"You're much too boisterous," she chided him, smiling happily.
"Never mind. Mon," he cried, "take me to the ban—— Oh, I forgot. Your wire was 'rushed.' You wanted to see me at once. That's why I nearly killed Bernard's team. There's—there's nothing wrong, is there?"
The blue eyes were serious enough now. He had come to a standstill, with his arms still about Monica's waist, half way across the room.
But now it was Monica's turn to urge. All the joy had gone out of her eyes. He had reminded her of the tissue of falsehood she had prepared for him. No, no, she could not tell him yet, and, with all a coward's procrastination, she put him off.
"I'll—I'll tell you about it when you've eaten," she said hastily. "We've—we've got to have a serious talk. But not—now. Afterwards."
Frank gave her a quick, sidelong glance.
"Righto," he said simply. But a shadow had somehow crept into his eyes. So deep was the sympathy between these two that he promptly read something of the trouble underlying her manner.
Frank was seated on the lounge beside the window. His attitude was one of tense, hard feeling. His blue eyes were full of bitterness as they stared out at the coppery sheen of the telegraph wires, which caught the winter sunlight, just outside the sitting-room window.
Monica had just finished speaking. For some minutes the low pleading of her voice had reached him across the room. She was as far from him as the limits of the room would permit. Such was her repulsion at the lies she had to tell him that she felt the distance between them could not be too wide.
Her story was told. She had branded herself with her sister's shame. The curious twist of her mind held her to her promise, even to this extent. Now she waited with bowed head for the judgment of this youth of eighteen who had been taught to call her "mother." And as she sat there waiting she felt that her whole life, her whole being was made up of degraded falsehood.