She couldn’t do that if Rodney knew.  He wouldn’t let her.  He’d want to care for her, comfort her, pack her in cotton-wool.  And there was a terrible yearning down in her heart, to let him.  For just that reason, he mustn’t be told.

But, as the sharp edges of this mood wore off, she saw a little more justly.  Already he suspected something.  She caught, now and again, a puzzled, worried, almost frightened look in his face.  It was a poor penance that others had to share.  So, at the end of her feast to-night, when the candles were lighted and the servants gone away, she’d tell him.  And, oh, what a comfort it would be to have him know!

That was the moment she was waiting for when he telephoned that he was bringing the Lakes out for dinner.  The old Rose might well have cried.

But now, as she sat trembling in front of her little boudoir fire, the door open behind her so that she’d surely hear him when he came in, the disappointment and the hurt that had clutched at her throat when she turned from the telephone, were wholly forgotten.  As I said, she hadn’t shed a tear.

The situation she was confronted with now was beyond tears.  Portia’s stinging words went over and over through her mind.  “If you let the big thing slip out of your hands because you haven’t the pluck to fight ...” and her own, “I promise I won’t do that.”  It would mean a fight.  She must keep her head.

She gave a last panicky shiver when she heard his latch-key, then pulled herself together.

“Come in here, Roddy,” she called, as he reached the head of the stairs.  “I want to talk about something.”

He had hoped, evidently, to find her abed and fast asleep.  His cautious footfalls on the stairs made clear his intention not to waken her.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, pausing in the doorway to her dressing-room, but not coming in.  “I didn’t know you meant to sit up for me.  If I’d known you were waiting, I’d have come back sooner.  But we got to talking and we were at the hotel before we knew it, and it was so long since I’d seen them ...”

“I haven’t minded,” she told him.  “I’ve been glad of a chance to think.  But now ...  Oh, please come in and shut the door!”

He did come in, but with manifest reluctance, and he stayed near the door in an attitude of arrested departure.

“It’s pretty late,” he protested with a nonchalance that rang a little flat.  “You must be awfully tired.  Hadn’t we better put off our pow-wow?”

She understood well enough.  The look in her face, some uncontrolled inflection in the voice she had meant to keep so even, had given her away.  He suspected she was going to be “tragic.”  If he didn’t look out, there’d be a “scene.”

“We can’t put it off,” she said.  “I let you have your talk out with the Lakes, but you’ll have to talk with me now.”

“We spent most of the time talking about you, anyway,” he said pleasantly.  “They’re both mad about you.  Barry says you’ve got a fine mind.”