Page:The Van Roon (IA thevanroon00snaiiala).pdf/101



Dinner was a miserable meal. The Yorkshire pudding was light, the roast sirloin was done to a turn, the potatoes were white and floury, the kidney beans were tender, but June could find nothing in the way of appetite. The mere presence of William at the other side of the table was almost more than she could bear. So keen was her sense of a terribly false position that she dare not look at him. What did he think of her? How must she appear to one all high-minded goodness and generosity?

Surely he must know, after what had just passed, that her love of the picture was mere base deceit. Surely he must hold such an opinion of her now that he would never believe or trust her again. And the tragedy of it was that she could not hope to make him see the real motive which lay behind it all.

Seated at the table, making only a pretence of eating, but listening with growing anger and disgust to the artful change she now detected in the tone of Uncle Si, it was as if the chair in which she sat was poised on the edge of an abyss. William must despise her quite as much as she despised the Old Crocodile, was the thought which turned her heart to stone.

S. Gedge Antiques having had the wit to discover the set of the wind, had begun most successfully to trim his sails. An hour's careful examination of the