"I can't stay long here," she whispered to Hilda, terrified.
And she suffered going into her own bedroom, re-entering into possession as if nothing had happened. She hated every minute inside the Wragby walls.
They did not meet Clifford till they went down to dinner. He was dressed, and with a black tie: rather reserved, and very much the superior gentleman. He behaved perfectly politely during the meal, and kept a polite sort of conversation going: but it seemed all touched with insanity.
"How much do the servants know?" asked Connie, when the woman was out of the room.
"Of your intentions? Nothing whatsoever."
"Mrs. Bolton knows."
He changed colour.
"Mrs. Bolton is not exactly one of the servants," he said.
"Oh, I don't mind."
There was tension till after coffee, when Hilda said she would go up to her room.
Clifford and Connie sat in silence when she had gone. Neither would begin to speak. Connie was so glad that he wasn't taking the pathetic line, she kept him up to as much haughtiness as possible. She just sat silent and looked down at her hands.
"I suppose you don't at all mind having gone back on your word?" he said at last.
"I can't help it," she murmured.
"But if you can't, who can?"
"I suppose nobody."
He looked at her with curious cold rage. He was used to her. She was as it were embedded in his will. How dared she now go back on him, and destroy the fabric of his daily existence? How dared she try to cause this derangement of his personality!
"And for what do you want to go back on everything?" he insisted.
"Love!" she said. It is best to be hackneyed.
"Love of Duncan Forbes? But you didn't think that worth having, when you met me. Do you mean to say you now love him better than anything else in life."
"One changes," she said.
"Possibly! Possibly you may have whims. But you still have to
