"Oh!" he said.
He took another cigarette, and his attitude at once looked easier. She wondered why.
"You don't mind about Emile being here, do you?"
Maurice was nearly answering quickly that he was delighted to welcome him. But a suddenly born shrewdness prevented him. To-day, like a guilty man, he was painfully conscious, painfully alert. He knew that Hermione was wondering about him, and realized that her question afforded him an opportunity to be deceptive and yet to seem quite natural and truthful. He could not be as he had been, to-day. The effort was far too difficult for him. Hermione's question showed him a plausible excuse for his peculiarity of demeanor and conduct. He seized it.
"I think it was very natural for you to bring him," he answered.
He lit the cigarette. His hand was trembling slightly.
"But—but you had rather I hadn't brought him?"
As Maurice began to act a part an old feeling returned to him, and almost turned his lie into truth.
"You could hardly expect me to wish to have Artois with us here, could you, Hermione?" he said, slowly.
She scarcely knew whether she were most pained or pleased. She was pained that anything she had done had clouded his happiness, but she was intensely glad to think he loved to be quite alone with her.