"Do you mean that for a reproach, because my want of means at present obliges me to keep my houses shut up?" he asked.
"No," she answered with a gleam of spirit, "and you know I do not."
There was a pause after this. It pleased him to make her ask for his permission to go to her mother, in so many words. He perceived that she found it difficult to do so, and there was satisfaction in the respect and fear which he thought were betokened by her hesitation. The sense of power and possession flattered his self-esteem and enlivened him.
"Do you object?" she ventured at last.
"To what, dear?" he asked, without interrupting an exchange of amorous glances which was just then going on between himself and the girl on the beach.
"To my going home?"
"Oh, no!" he exclaimed, smiling. "Only to that way of putting it. By the way," he added pleasantly, taking up a pair of opera glasses that were lying on a table beside him, and adjusting the sight, "shall I accompany you?"
Edith had taken it for granted that he would, as they had never yet been separated since their marriage; and the question, striking as it did another note of change, surprised and hurt her. But as it was evident that he would not have asked it had he wished to go, she answered quietly: "Oh, no! Why should you trouble yourself?"
"It would be no trouble, I assure you," he answered, confirming her first impression that he did not wish to go.
"Oh, no!" she repeated. "I could not think of taking you away from here—if the air is doing you good."