Part 87 (1/2)

”Yes, I think so, and Randal Gower, and some others.”

”I should like to see them very much.”

She has grown quite animated.

”The only one you _don't_ want to see, in my opinion, is your husband,” says Margaret, with a little reproach.

”I want to see him quite as much as he wants to see me,” says t.i.ta.

”By-the-bye, you ought to tell James about his coming. It is half-past three now.”

”He's always late,” says Margaret lazily.

But even as she says it, both t.i.ta and she are conscious of the approach of a man's footstep, that a.s.suredly is not the footstep of James.

”I told you--I told you!” cries t.i.ta, springing to her feet, and wringing her hands. ”Oh! _why_ didn't you give some directions to James? Oh, Margaret! Oh! _what_ shall I do? If I go out there I shall meet him face to face. Oh! why do people build rooms with only one door in them? I'm undone.” She glances wildly round her, and in the far distance of this big drawing-room espies a screen. ”That,”

gasps she, _”that_ will do! I'll hide myself behind that. Don't keep him long, Meg darling! Hurry him off. Say you've got the cholera--_any_ little thing like that--and get rid of him.”

”t.i.ta--you can't. It is impossible. He will probably say things, and you won't like them--and----”

”I shan't listen! I shall put my fingers in my ears. Of _course”_--indignantly--”I shan't listen.”

”But--t.i.ta--good gracious----”

Her other words are lost for ever. The handle of the door is turned.

t.i.ta, indeed, has barely time to scramble behind the screen when Sir Maurice is announced by James, who is electrified by the glance his mistress casts at him.

”I expect I'm a little early,” says Rylton, shaking hands with Margaret--apologizing in his words but not in his tone. He is of course unaware of the heart-burnings in Margaret's breast, or the apology would have been more than a mere society speech. ”You are alone?”

Here poor Margaret's purgatory begins--Margaret, who is the soul of truth.

”Well, you can see!” says she, spreading out her hands and giving a comprehensive glance round her--a glance that rests as if stricken on the screen. What awful possibilities lie behind that!

”Yes, yes, of course. Yet I fancied I heard voices.”

”How curious are our fancies!” says poor Margaret, taking the tone of an advanced Theosophist, even while her heart is dying within her.

”Where is t.i.ta?” asks Rylton suddenly. To Margaret's guilty conscience the direct question sounds like an open disbelief in her former answers. But Rylton had asked it thus abruptly merely because he felt that if he lingered over it it never might be asked; and he _must_ know. ”Where is t.i.ta?” asks he again. Where indeed!

”She is here--at least,” hurriedly, almost frantically, _”with me,_ you know; staying with me. _Staying,_ you know.”

”Yes, I know. Gone out, perhaps?”

”No, n--o. In retirement,” says Margaret wretchedly. _Is_ she listening? How can she answer him all through? If he speaks _against_ her, what is she to do? If she has in all justice to condemn her in some little ways, will she bear it? Will she keep her fingers in her ears?

”Ah--headache, I suppose,” says Rylton.

”Yes; her head aches sometimes,” says Margaret, who now feels she is fast developing into a confirmed liar.

”It usen't to ache,” says he.

At this Miss Knollys grows a little wild.