Margaret, with a keen sense of relief, goes to the folding-doors, opens them cautiously, and looks in. A distinctly cold and cutting air greets her; she is aware at once that she is standing in a thorough draught. And where is t.i.ta?
Good gracious! where _can_ she have gone to? There is no exit from this room save through the next, where she and Rylton have been sitting--except by the chimney, or through one of the windows. For one awful moment it occurs to Miss Knollys that t.i.ta might have flung herself out of a window.
She glances hurriedly to the window nearest her, and then sees something that makes her heart stand still.
Are those t.i.ta"s heels?
Margaret"s mind is full of suicidal fears. She steps cautiously towards the open window--the window through which t.i.ta"s body is now flung. t.i.ta"s feet alone are in the room! t.i.ta herself is suspended between heaven and earth, like Mahomet"s coffin!
"t.i.ta! what are you doing?" cries Margaret, laying a sudden hand upon the white sash that is encircling Lady Rylton"s waist.
At this, the latter scrambles back into a more respectable position, and stares at Margaret with angry, shamed eyes, and cheeks like a "red, red rose."
"Good gracious!" says she. "Why, you very nearly threw me out of the window."
Now, this is so manifestly unfair that Margaret feels resentment.
What had her action been? She had dragged t.i.ta backwards into the room; she had not pushed her out, as the latter seemed to suggest.
"I quite thought you were trying to throw yourself out of the window," says Margaret, with emphasis. "What _have_ you been doing?"
"Nothing--nothing," declares t.i.ta airily, hurriedly. "The day is so lovely--you remember we were talking about it a while ago. I was--er--listening to the birds."
"Surely one need not hang one"s self out of a window to listen to them," says Miss Knollys. "Why don"t you confess the truth? You were looking at Maurice."
"Well, if you _will_ have it," says t.i.ta resentfully, "I _was!_ I was curious to see if he was as ill-tempered looking as ever. I was foiled, however; I saw nothing but the back of his odious head."
"What a disappointment!" says Margaret, laughing with an irrepressible if rather unkind mirth.
"I dare say I shall get over it," coldly, with a distrustful glance at Margaret. "Well--how _is_ he looking?"
At this Margaret laughs again.
"That was just what he asked about you!"
"About me!" frowning. "Fancy his asking anything about me! Well, and you said I was looking----"
"Lovely, but a little pale, as if you were pining."
"Margaret, you did _not_ say that!"
"My dear child, of course I did. I am not sure about the pining, but I certainly said you looked pale. So you do. You couldn"t expect me to tell a lie about it."
"I could indeed. I," with deep reproach, "would have told a dozen lies for you in a minute."
"Well, I don"t want you to," says Miss Knollys. "By-the-bye, he is not going out of town, after all."
"No?" with studied indifference. "Then I suppose we may expect to hear that Mrs. Bethune will be in town shortly?"
"I really do think, t.i.ta, that you ought to refrain from speeches like that. They are unworthy of you, and they are not true. Whatever infatuation Maurice felt for Marian Bethune in the past, lies in the past. Only to-day he told me----"
"Told you?"
t.i.ta leans eagerly forward.
"That if he ever _had_ loved her--and he seemed now to doubt that--he loved her no longer."
"Just shows how fickle he is," says t.i.ta, with supreme scorn.
"Of course, if you are determined to misjudge him in _every_ way----"
"It is he who misjudges me!" She gets up and walks impatiently from Margaret to the window and back again. "How could he say I deliberately deserted him?"
Margaret looks at her. It suddenly occurs to her what a blessed thought that was of hers to take him out of hearing to the far end of the room.
"You heard that, then?"
t.i.ta starts and turns crimson.
"Oh, that!" stammers she. "Well, I--I couldn"t help it. I was near the door, and he spoke very loudly, and----"
"And you heard," says Margaret, suppressing some amus.e.m.e.nt. "Quite so. Well, you did leave him, you see."
"Not until he drove me to it by his cruelty, his wicked suspicions.
You know that, Margaret."
"Oh! I know he behaved like a stupid boy," says Margaret impatiently.
"Ah, _darling_ Meg! I _knew_ you would take my part."
"And you," mercilessly, "behaved like a silly baby."
t.i.ta flings herself into a chair with a petulant gesture.
"He has won you over to his side. I knew, when he took you down to the end of the room, where I could hear nothing, that he was going to poison your mind against me."
Miss Knollys gives way once more to ill-timed mirth.
"So you were _looking,_ too?" says she.
"I--no. Oh _no._ I--I only"--growing crimson--"wanted to see whether you were safe. You had stopped talking, and I know how violent he can be, and," with a gasp, "I just looked once to see that you were alive."
"t.i.ta," says Miss Knollys solemnly, "when I want those dozen lies told for me in a minute, I shan"t ask _you_ to tell them."
CHAPTER XXII.