“My son is—Leo is not a safe friend for you at this moment.”
Again the dull, brick-red flush rose in his cheeks. There was an odd, flattened look just above his cheekbones near his eyes, and the eyes themselves had a strange expression as of determination and guilt mingled.
“Your son?” Lady Holme said. “But—”
“I do not wish to assume anything, but I—well, my daughter-in-law sometimes comes to me.”
“Sometimes!” said Lady Holme.
“Leo is not a good husband,” Sir Donald said. “But that is not the point. He is also a bad—friend.”
“Why don’t you say lover?” she almost whispered.
He grasped his knee with one hand and moved the hand rapidly to and fro.
“I must say of him to you that where his pleasure or his vanity is concerned he is unscrupulous.”
“Why say all this to a woman?”