Part 63 (1/2)
”Well?” He checks himself forcibly. Even now, when pa.s.sion is gathering, he holds himself back. ”When I came back what did I see?”
”Our house--_not_ in flames, I hope; and our guests--enjoying themselves!” t.i.ta has lifted her head. She allows herself a little smile. Then she turns upon him. ”Ah, I told you!” says she. ”You want always to find fault with me.”
”I want nothing but that my wife should show _some_ sort of dignity.”
”I see! You should have asked Mrs. Bethune to see after your house--your guests!” says t.i.ta.
She says it very lightly. Her small face has a faint smile upon it.
She moves to a large lounging chair, and flings herself into it with charming _abandon_, crosses her lovely naked arms behind her head, and looks up at him with naughty defiance.
”Perhaps you hardly know, t.i.ta, what you are saying,” says Rylton slowly.
”Yes, I do. I do indeed. What I do _not_ know is, what fault you have to find with me.”
”Then learn it at once.” His tone is stern. ”I object to your playing hide-and-seek with your cousin.”
”With my cousin! One would think,” says t.i.ta, getting up from her chair and staring at him as if astonished, ”that Tom and I had been playing it by _ourselves!”_
”It seemed to me very much like that,” says Rylton, his eyes white and cold.
”I know what you mean,” says t.i.ta. ”And,” with open contempt, ”I'm sorry for you--you think Tom is in love with me! And you therefore refuse to let me have a single word with him at any time. And why?
What does it matter to you, when _you_ don't care? When _you_ are not in love with me!” Rylton makes a slight movement. ”It's a regular dog in the manger business; _you_ don't like me, and therefore n.o.body else must like me. That's what it comes to! And,”
with a little blaze of wrath, ”it is all so absurd, too! If I can't speak to my own cousin, I can't speak to anyone.”
”I don't object to your speaking to your cousin,” says Rylton; ”you can speak to him as much as ever you like. What I object to is your making yourself particular with him--your spending whole _hours_ with him.”
”Hours! We weren't five seconds behind that screen.”
”I am not thinking of the screen now; I am thinking of yesterday morning, when you went out riding with him.”
”What! you have not forgotten that yet?” exclaims she, with high scorn. ”Why, I thought you had forgiven, and put all that behind you.”
”I have not forgotten it. I might have considered it wiser to say nothing more about it, had not your conduct of this evening----”
”Nonsense!” She interrupts him with a saucy little shrug of her shoulders. ”And as for _hours_--it wasn't hours, any way.”
”You went out with him at eight o'clock----”
”Who told you that?”
”Your maid.”
”You asked Sarah?”
”Certainly I did. I had to do something before I asked my guests to sit down to breakfast without their hostess!”
”Well, I don't care who you asked,” says t.i.ta mutinously.
”You went out at eight, and you came home late for breakfast at half-past ten.”