‘One thing is certain,’ she said; ‘I can’t do anything NOW, can I?’
Madeline laid hold of silence and made armour with it. At all events, she must have time to think.
‘I decline to advise you,’ she said, and she spoke with a barely perceptive movement of her lips only. The rest of her face was stone.
‘How unkind and unforgiving you are! Must people would think the loss of a hundred thousand pounds about punishment enough for what I have done. You don’t seem to see it. But on top of that you won’t refuse to promise not to tell Horace?’
‘I will not bind myself in any way whatever.’
‘Not even when you know that the moment I hear of the—death I intend to—to—’
‘Make an honest man of him? Not even when I know that.’
‘Do you want me to go down on my knees to you?’
Madeline glanced at the flowered fabric involved and said, ‘I wouldn’t, I think.’
‘And this is to hang over me the whole season? I shall enjoy nothing—absolutely NOTHING.’ The blue eyes were suddenly eclipsed by angry tears, which the advent of a servant with cards checked as suddenly.