‘Very nearly!’ she admitted, with the slowest possible lift of her lashes.
‘But, Bel—if you cared, how could you pull it through? How could you look at me with your eyes like bits of glass?’
‘You forget,’ she said, ‘I can act. It was because—I cared so much; because I couldn’t bear the idea of your taking part in that horror out there; and because you were so obstinate, that in the end I put on the strongest screw I could think of—and it wasn’t so strong as I supposed. That’s the inner history of the last three days.’
He regarded her searchingly, taking it all in. ‘Women are queer things,’ he said. ‘Did you really suppose I’d capitulate—under the screw?’
‘I half hoped so—till I heard your speech. Then I began to see that I’d never known the real Mark: only Bel’s lover.’
‘And—did you approve of the real Mark?’
She laughed and kissed him.
‘Honestly, I found him rather alarming. Too big altogether for a mere Bel. But I wanted him more than ever. And now I know he’s still mine, I can’t let him go!’
For Mark there was only one flaw in those first raptures of reunion: and for that flaw his mother was unwittingly responsible. Nothing would induce Bel to come up to Inveraig or to travel south with the Forsyths on Monday.
‘I can’t face them yet awhile,’ she persisted, ‘specially your Mother. She won’t easily forgive me for hurting you so. No real mother could. Besides, she was probably thanking her stars for your escape; and now I’ve turned up again, like a bad penny!’