"Perhaps I am more intelligent than you think I am."
He was, of course, utterly wretched, impressed by the futility of arguing with her.
"Do your people know that you are seeing Louis Akers!"
"You are being rather solicitous, aren't you?"
"I am being rather anxious. I wouldn't dare, of course, if we hadn't been such friends. But Akers is wrong, wrong every way, and I have to tell you that, even if it means that you will never see me again. He takes a credulous girl--"
"Thank you!"
"And talks bunk to her and possibly makes love to her--"
"Haven't we had enough of Mr. Akers?" Lily asked coldly. "If you cannot speak of anything else, please don't talk."
The result of which was a frozen silence until they reached the house.
"Good-by," she said primly. "It was very nice of you to call me up. Good-by, Jinx." She went up the steps, leaving him bare-headed and rather haggard, looking after her.
He took the dog and went out into the country on foot, tramping through the mud without noticing it, and now and then making little despairing gestures. He was helpless. He had cut himself off from her like a fool. Akers. Akers and Edith Boyd. Other women. Akers and other women. And now Lily. Good God, Lily!
Jinx was tired. He begged to be carried, planting two muddy feet on his master's shabby trouser leg, and pleading with low whines. Willy Cameron stooped and, gathering up the little animal, tucked him under his arm. When it commenced to rain he put him under his coat and plunged his head through the mud and wet toward home.
Lily had entered the house in a white fury, but a moment later she was remorseful. For one thing, her own anger bewildered her. After all, he had meant well, and it was like him to be honest, even if it cost him something he valued.
She ran to the door and looked around for him, but he had disappeared. She went in again, remorseful and unhappy. What had come over her to treat him like that? He had looked almost stricken.
"Mr. Akers is calling, Miss Cardew," said the footman. "He is in the drawing-room."
Lily went in slowly.
Louis Akers had been waiting for some time. He had lounged into the drawing-room, with an ease assumed for the servant's benefit, and had immediately lighted a cigarette. That done, and the servant departed, he had carefully appraised his surroundings. He liked the stiff formality of the room. He liked the servant in his dark maroon livery. He liked the silence and decorum. Most of all, he liked himself in these surroundings. He wandered around, touching a bowl here, a vase there, eyeing carefully the ancient altar cloth that lay on a table, the old needle-work tapestry on the chairs.