"
He looked down at her, his face like a marble mask. "So," he said, "you
want to throw me over!"
She clasped her hands very tightly before her. "Oh, I know it's hateful
of me," she said.
He made a slight, disdainful gesture. "Did you make up your mind or did
Scott make it up for you?"
"No, no!" she cried in distress. "It was not his doing. I--I just told
him, that was all."
"And you now desire him for a witness," suggested Sir Eustace cynically.
Dinah looked again towards Scott. He stood against the mantelpiece, as
grimly upright as his brother and again oddly she was struck by the
similarity between them. She could not have said wherein it lay, but she
had never seen it more marked.
He spoke very quietly in answer to her look. "I have promised to stay for
as long as you want me, but if you wish to be alone with Eustace for a
few minutes, I will wait in the conservatory."
"Yes, let him do that!" Imperiously Eustace accepted the suggestion. "We
shall not keep him long."
Dinah stood hesitating. Scott was looking at her very steadily and
reassuringly. His eyes seemed to be telling her that she had nothing to
fear. But he would not move without her word, and in the end reluctantly
she gave in.
"Very well," she said, in a low voice. "If--if you will wait!"
"I will," Scott said.
He limped across the room to the open door, passed through, closed it
softly behind him.
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