Page:The Soft Side (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900).djvu/200

192 each keeping something back. 'When are you to see him again?' Margaret asked.

This time Mrs. Despard knew whom she meant. 'Never—never again. What I may feel for him—what I may feel for myself—has nothing to do with it. Never as long as I live!' Margaret's visitor declared. 'You don't believe it?' she, however, the next moment demanded.

'I don't believe it. You know how I've always liked him. But what has that to do with it either?' the girl almost incoherently continued. 'I don't believe it—no,' she repeated. 'I don't want to make anything harder for you, but you won't find it so easy.'

'I shan't find anything easy, and I must row my own boat. But not seeing him will be the least impossibility.'

Margaret looked away. 'Well!'—she spoke at last vaguely and conclusively.

Something in her tone so arrested her friend that she found herself suddenly clutched by the arm. 'Do you mean to say you'll see Mr. Mackern?'

'I don't know.'

'Then I do!' Mrs. Despard pronounced with energy. 'You're lost.'

'Ah!' wailed Margaret with the same wan detachment.

'Yes, simply lost!' It rang out—would have rung out indeed too loud had it not caught itself just in time. Mrs. Gorton at that moment opened the door.

 VI

at last came down—he had been sure it would be but a question of time. Barton Reeve had, to this end, presented himself, on the Sunday morning, early: he had allowed a margin for difficulty. He was armed with a note of three lines, which, on the butler's saying to him that she was not at home, he simply, in a tone before which even a