HOW MARGARET MAKES A FEARFUL DISCOVERY; HOW SHE RUSHES TO THE
RESCUE, BUT IS FAR FROM WELL RECEIVED; AND HOW TITA GIVES HERSELF
AWAY, NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE.
Margaret, with a keen sense of relief, goes to the folding-doors,
opens them cautiously, and looks in. A distinctly cold and cutting
air greets her; she is aware at once that she is standing in a
thorough draught. And where is Tita?
Good gracious! where _can_ she have gone to? There is no exit from
this room save through the next, where she and Rylton have been
sitting--except by the chimney, or through one of the windows. For
one awful moment it occurs to Miss Knollys that Tita might have
flung herself out of a window.
She glances hurriedly to the window nearest her, and then sees
something that makes her heart stand still.
Are those Tita's heels?
Margaret's mind is full of suicidal fears. She steps cautiously
towards the open window--the window through which Tita's body is now
flung. Tita's feet alone are in the room! Tita herself is suspended
between heaven and earth, like Mahomet's coffin!
"Tita! what are you doing?" cries Margaret, laying a sudden hand
upon the white sash that is encircling Lady Rylton's waist.
At this, the latter scrambles back into a more respectable position,
and stares at Margaret with angry, shamed eyes, and cheeks like a
"red, red rose."
"Good gracious!" says she. "Why, you very nearly threw me out of the
window."
Now, this is so manifestly unfair that Margaret feels resentment.
What had her action been? She had dragged Tita backwards into the
room; she had not pushed her out, as the latter seemed to suggest.
"I quite thought you were trying to throw yourself out of the
window," says Margaret, with emphasis. "What _have_ you been doing?"
"Nothing--nothing," declares Tita airily, hurriedly. "The day is so
lovely--you remember we were talking about it a while ago. I
was--er--listening to the birds."
"Surely one need not hang one's self out of a window to listen to
them," says Miss Knollys. "Why don't you confess the truth? You were
looking at Maurice."
"Well, if you _will_ have it," says Tita resentfully, "I _was!_ I
was curious to see if he was as ill-tempered looking as ever. I was
foiled, however; I saw nothing but the back of his odious head."
"What a disappointment!" says Margaret, laughing with an
irrepressible if rather unkind mirth.
"I dare say I shall get over it," coldly, with a distrustful glance
at Margaret. "Well--how _is_ he looking?"
At this Margaret laughs again.
"That was just what he asked about you!"
"About me!" frowning. "Fancy his asking anything about me! Well, and
you said I was looking----"
"Lovely, but a little pale, as if you were pining."
"Margaret, you did _not_ say that!"
"My dear child, of course I did. I am not sure about the pining, but
I certainly said you looked pale. So you do. You couldn't expect me
to tell a lie about it."
"I could indeed. I," with deep reproach, "would have told a dozen
lies for you in a minute."
"Well, I don't want you to," says Miss Knollys. "By-the-bye, he is
not going out of town, after all."
"No?" with studied indifference. "Then I suppose we may expect to
hear that Mrs. Bethune will be in town shortly?"
"I really do think, Tita, that you ought to refrain from speeches
like that. They are unworthy of you, and they are not true. Whatever
infatuation Maurice felt for Marian Bethune in the past, lies in the
past. Only to-day he told me----"
"Told you?"
Tita leans eagerly forward.
"That if he ever _had_ loved her--and he seemed now to doubt
that--he loved her no longer."
"Just shows how fickle he is," says Tita, with supreme scorn.
"Of course, if you are determined to misjudge him in _every_
way----"
"It is he who misjudges me!" She gets up and walks impatiently from
Margaret to the window and back again. "How could he say I
deliberately deserted him?"
Margaret looks at her. It suddenly occurs to her what a blessed
thought that was of hers to take him out of hearing to the far end
of the room.
"You heard that, then?"
Tita starts and turns crimson.
"Oh, that!" stammers she. "Well, I--I couldn't help it. I was near
the door, and he spoke very loudly, and----"
"And you heard," says Margaret, suppressing some amusement. "Quite
so. Well, you did leave him, you see."
"Not until he drove me to it by his cruelty, his wicked suspicions.
You know that, Margaret."
"Oh! I know he behaved like a stupid boy," says Margaret
impatiently.
"Ah, _darling_ Meg! I _knew_ you would take my part."
"And you," mercilessly, "behaved like a silly baby."
Tita flings herself into a chair with a petulant gesture.
"He has won you over to his side. I knew, when he took you down to
the end of the room, where I could hear nothing, that he was going
to poison your mind against me."
Miss Knollys gives way once more to ill-timed mirth.
"So you were _looking,_ too?" says she.
"I--no. Oh _no._ I--I only"--growing crimson--"wanted to see whether
you were safe. You had stopped talking, and I know how violent he
can be, and," with a gasp, "I just looked once to see that you were
alive."
"Tita," says Miss Knollys solemnly, "when I want those dozen lies
told for me in a minute, I shan't ask _you_ to tell them."