He tried to set them at their ease.
“Mr. Winterfield is so pleased with the pictures, that he means to come and see them again,” he said to his wife.
“And one of his favorites happens to be your favorite, too.”
She tried to look at Winterfield, but her eyes sank. She could turn toward him, and that was all.
“Is it the sea-piece in the study?” she said to him faintly.
“Yes,” he answered, with formal politeness; “it seems to me to be one of the painter’s finest works.”
Romayne looked at him in unconcealed wonder.
To what flat commonplace Winterfield’s lively enthusiasm had sunk in Stella’s presence!
She perceived that some unfavorable impression had been produced on her husband, and interposed with a timely suggestion.
Her motive was not only to divert Romayne’s attention from Winterfield, but to give him a reason for leaving the room.
“The little water-color drawing in my bedroom is by the same artist,” she said.
“Mr. Winterfield might like to see it.
If you will ring the bell, Lewis, I will send my maid for it.”
Romayne had never allowed the servants to touch his works of art, since the day when a zealous housemaid had tried to wash one of his plaster casts.
He made the reply which his wife had anticipated.
“No! no!” he said.
“I will fetch the drawing myself.” He turned gayly to Winterfield.
“Prepare yourself for another work that you would like to kiss.”
He smiled, and left the room.
The instant the door was closed, Stella approached Winterfield.
Her beautiful face became distorted by a mingled expression of rage and contempt.
She spoke to him in a fierce peremptory whisper.
“Have you any consideration for me left?”
His look at her, as she put that question, revealed the most complete contrast between his face and hers.
Compassionate sorrow was in his eyes, tender forbearance and respect spoke in his tones, as he answered her.
“I have more than consideration for you, Stella—”
She angrily interrupted him.
“How dare you call me by my Christian name?”
He remonstrated, with a gentleness that might have touched the heart of any woman.
“Do you still refuse to believe that I never deceived you?
Has time not softened your heart to me yet?”
She was more contemptuous toward him than ever.
“Spare me your protestations,” she said;
“I heard enough of them two years since.
Will you do what I ask of you?”
“You know that I will.”
“Put an end to your acquaintance with my husband.
Put an end to it,” she repeated vehemently, “from this day, at once and forever!
Can I trust you to do it?”
“Do you think I would have entered this house if I had known he was your husband?”
He made that reply with a sudden change in him—with a rising color and in firm tones of indignation.
In a moment more, his voice softened again, and his kind blue eyes rested on her sadly and devotedly.
“You may trust me to do more than you ask,” he resumed.
“You have made a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“When Mr. Romayne introduced us, you met me like a stranger—and you left me no choice but to do as you did.”
“I wish you to be a stranger.” Her sharpest replies made no change in his manner.
He spoke as kindly and as patiently as ever.
“You forget that you and your mother were my guests at Beaupark, two years ago—”
Stella understood what he meant—and more.