“It is your duty to come downstairs and see him,” Margaret had said.

She always brought in poor Duty, who certainly must have been fagged to death at that time.

“I hate him!” said Tita rebelliously, and now with increased venom, as she saw that Margaret only had come to the assault.  “Go down and tell him that.”

“This is dreadful,” said poor Margaret, going to the door.

But even now the little miscreant wedged in between the furniture was not satisfied.

“Tell him I hope I’ll never see him again!” said she, calling it out loudly as though afraid Margaret might not hear and deliver her words.

“I shall certainly deliver no such message,” said the latter, pausing on the threshold and waxing wroth.  Even the worm will turn, they say, though I confess I never saw one that did.  “You can tell him that yourself, some day, when you see him!”

But this parting shaft had only made Tita laugh. "See him! She would die first!”

Margaret had gone down with a modified edition of this rencontre to Rylton, and Rylton had shrugged his shoulders.  He could not disguise from Margaret the fact, however, that he was chagrined.  He had seen through the modifying, of course, and had laughed—­not very merrily—­and told Margaret not to ruin her conscience on his account.  He had lived with Tita long enough to know the sort of message she would be sure to send.

Margaret mumbled something after that, never very clear to either of them, and Rylton had gone on to say that he was going down to the country for a month.  He was starting on Monday next.  He had said all that on Thursday, and this is Tuesday.  There is a sense of relief, yet of regret, in Margaret’s heart as she tells herself that he is well out of town.  But now, certainly, is the time to work on Tita’s sense of right and wrong.  Rylton will come back at the end of the month, and when he does, surely—­surely his wife should be willing to, at all events, receive him as a friend.  The gossip surrounding these two people, so dear to her, is distressing to Margaret, and she would gladly have put an end to it.  The whole thing, too, is so useless, so senseless.  And as for that affair of Marian’s Bethune’s—­she has no belief in that.  It has blown over—­is dead.  Killed—­by time.

“See him?” says Tita at last, stammering.

“Yes, when he comes back.  You have a month to think about it.  He has gone to the country.”

“A very good thing too,” says Tita, with a shrug of her shoulders.  “I hope he will stay there.”

“But he won’t,” says Margaret in despair.  “He returns to town in June.  Tita, I hope—­I do hope you will be sensible, and consent to see him then.”

“Does he want to see me?” asks Tita.

Here Margaret is posed.  Rylton had certainly known, that day she had gone up to Tita’s room to bring her down, what her errand was, but he had not asked her to go upon it.  He had expressed no desire, had shown no wish for a meeting with his wife.