“You are there every day, Aubray.”
“I have business with Herr Harlberg.”
She gave a sigh. “It is a strange business——”
“How?” he interrupted sharply.
“That can change you and make you so unkind to me.” A tear glistened in her eye; her pride made her dash it away swiftly ere he turned. He came towards her, the deceitful face smoothed into tenderness, although the irritation was not quite successfully obliterated.
“Unkind, little one?” he protested caressingly. “You are mistaken. I could not be that. Only I have been worried lately by political matters. A man who plays for a great stake must not expect to have command either of his time or his moods. You must forgive me, Royda.”
He spoke in a tone of easy confidence, very different to his strenuous pleading with Philippa Harlberg. He put his arm round his cousin’s shoulders, drew her to him and kissed her. “Am I forgiven, little one?” To a third person the tone of the question would have sounded indifferent as to its answer.
“Aubray, I feared she was trying to take you from me.”
“No; you are utterly wrong,” he assured her quite truthfully. “That is the last thing she would try to do! I swear it, Royda. There is no love between us.”
She gave a sigh of relief.