His tone pointed the allusion. Mercy shrank from looking at him. The
signs of painful agitation began to show themselves in her shifting
color and her uneasy silence. Roused by Julian's significantly distant
reference to what had passed between them, her better impulses were
struggling already to recover their influence over her. She might, at
that critical moment, have yielded to the promptings of her own nobler
nature--she might have risen superior to the galling remembrance of the
insults that had been heaped upon her--if Grace's malice had not seen
in her hesitation a means of referring offensively once again to her
interview with Julian Gray.
"Pray don't think twice about trusting him alone with me," she said,
with a sardonic affectation of politeness. "_I_ am not interested in
making a conquest of Mr. Julian Gray."
The jealous distrust in Horace (already awakened by Julian's request)
now attempted to assert itself openly. Before he could speak, Mercy's
indignation had dictated Mercy's answer.
"I am much obliged to you, Mr. Gray," she said, addressing Julian (but
still not raising her eyes to his). "I have nothing more to say. There
is no need for me to trouble you again."
In those rash words she recalled the confession to which she stood
pledged. In those rash words she committed herself to keeping the
position that she had usurped, in the face of the woman whom she had
deprived of it!
Horace was silenced, but not satisfied. He saw Julian's eyes fixed in
sad and searching attention on Mercy's face while she was speaking.
He heard Julian sigh to himself when she had done. He observed
Julian--after a moment's serious consideration, and a moment's glance
backward at the stranger in the poor black clothes--lift his head with
the air of a man who had taken a sudden resolution.
"Bring me that card directly," he said to the servant. His tone
announced that he was not to be trifled with. The man obeyed.
Without answering Lady Janet--who still peremptorily insisted on her
right to act for herself--Julian took the pencil from his pocketbook and
added his signature to the writing already inscribed on the card. When
he had handed it back to the servant he made his apologies to his aunt.
"Pardon me for venturing to interfere," he said "There is a serious
reason for what I have done, which I will explain to you at a fitter
time. In the meanwhile I offer no further obstruction to the course
which you propose taking. On the contrary, I have just assisted you in
gaining the end that you have in view."
As he said that he held up the pencil with which he had signed his name.
Lady Janet, naturally perplexed, and (with some reason, perhaps)
offended as well, made no answer. She waved her hand to the servant, and
sent him away with the card.