As she descended the stairs that evening, in the gray frock and the diamond circlet, she smiled the little smile that meant pleased anticipation.
Teddy was a dear boy, and he had grown older in the last day or two. After dinner she would play on her fiddle and—watch the dear boy. Then there would be a rather picturesque good-by, for he was leaving at dawn, and—that would be all.
Fate, grinning in his monk’s sleeve, had settled things otherwise.
There was no music, and at half-past ten Lady Harden found herself in a little boat on the lake, one of several parties, alone with Teddy Cleeve. In the shadow of some willows he pulled in his oars.
His face was very white, his mouth fixed.
“Why have you done this?” he asked, abruptly.
She hesitated, and then, the obvious banality refusing to be uttered, answered, slowly: “It isn’t really done, Teddy, you only think it is.”
“That is—a damned lie.”
The woman never lived who did not enjoy being sworn at by the right man, in the right way.
“Teddy!”