"Let me open them!" she said.

He stood by and watched her while she did it. She was very deft in all her ways, but to-day for some reason her hands were not quite so steady as usual.

Nick threw a sudden glance across at Max while he waited. "Miss Campion all right this morning?" he asked.

"Apparently," said Max, staring deliberately at a point some inches above Nick's head.

Nick pivoted round abruptly, and found Violet standing in the doorway directly behind him. He went instantly to meet her.

"Hullo, Miss Campion! You're just in time for breakfast. Come and have some!"

His tone was brisk and kindly. He took her hand and drew her forward.

She submitted listlessly. Her face was white and her eyes deeply shadowed. She scarcely raised them as she advanced.

"Hullo, Nick!" she said indifferently. "Hullo, Allegro! No, I don't want any breakfast. I'm not hungry to-day." She reached the table, and for the first time seemed to become aware of Max, seated on the opposite side of it.

Her eyes suddenly opened wide. She stood still and faced him. "I want my cigarettes," she said, with slow emphasis.

Olga glanced at him sharply, in apprehension of she knew not what. Max's face, however, expressed no anxiety. He even faintly smiled.

"What! Haven't you got any? I shall be happy to supply you with some,"

he said, feeling in his pocket for his own case.

She leaned her hands upon the table in a peculiar, crouching att.i.tude that struck Olga as curiously suggestive of an angry animal.

"I don't want yours," she said, in a deep voice that sounded almost like a menace. "I want my own!"

Max looked straight at her for a few seconds without speaking. Then, "I am sorry," he said very deliberately. "But you mustn't smoke that sort any more. They are not good for you."

"And you have dared to take them away?" she said.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I had no choice."

"No choice!" She echoed the words in a voice that vibrated very strangely. "You speak as if--as if--you had a right to confiscate my property."

"I have a right to confiscate that sort," said Max.

"What right?" She flung the question like a challenge, and as she flung it she straightened herself in sudden splendid defiance. All the pallor had gone from her face. She glowed with fierce, pulsing life.

Max remained looking at her. There was a glint of mercilessness in his eyes. "What right?" he repeated slowly. "If you saw a blind man walking over a precipice, would you say you hadn't the right to stop him?"

"I am not blind!" she flung back at him. "And I refuse to be stopped by you--or anyone!"

Max raised his red brows. "You amaze me," he said. "Then you are aware of the precipice?"

She clenched her hands. "I know what I am doing--yes! And I can guide myself. I refuse to be guided by you!"

"Violet!" Nervously Olga interposed. "Never mind now, dear! Do sit down and have some breakfast! The eggs are getting cold."

"Quite so," said Nick, putting down his letters abruptly. "The coffee also. Olga, you may tear up all my correspondence. It's nothing but bills. Miss Campion, wouldn't you like to b.u.t.ter some toast for me? You do it better than anyone I know. And I'm deuced hungry."

She turned away half-mechanically, met his smile of cheery effrontery, and suddenly flashed him a smile in return.

"What a gross flatterer you are!" she said "Allegro, aren't you jealous? Which piece of toast do you fancy, Nick? Can I cut up some ham for you as well?"

The tension was over and Olga breathed again. Max continued his breakfast with an inscrutable countenance, finished it, and departed to the surgery.

Violet did not so much as glance up at his departure. She was wrangling with Nick over the best means of attacking a boiled egg with one hand.

There was no longer the faintest hint of tragedy in her demeanour. Yet Olga went about her own duties with a heart like lead. She was beginning to understand Max's att.i.tude at last; and it filled her with misgiving.

CHAPTER XVI

SECRETS

The rest of that day was pa.s.sed in so ordinary a fashion that Olga found herself wondering now and then if she could by any chance have dreamed the events of the night.

During the whole of the morning she was occupied with her jam-making, while Violet lazed in the garden. Nick had planned a motor-ride in the afternoon, and they went for miles, returning barely in time for dinner.

Violet was in excellent spirits throughout, and seemed unconscious of fatigue, though Olga was so weary that she nearly fell asleep in the drawing-room after the meal. Max was in one of his preoccupied moods, and scarcely addressed a word to anyone. Only when he bade her good-night she had a curious feeling that his hand-grip was intended to convey something more than mere convention demanded. She withdrew her own hand very quickly. For some reason she was feeling a little afraid of Max.

Yet on the following morning, so casual was his greeting that she felt oddly vexed with him as well as with herself, and was even glad when Violet sauntered down late as usual and claimed his attention. Violet, it seemed, had decided to ignore his decidedly arbitrary treatment of her. She had also apparently given up smoking, for she made no further reference to her vanished cigarettes, a piece of docility over which Olga, who had known her intimately for some years, marvelled much.

She was obliged to leave her that afternoon to go to tea with an old patient of her father's who lived at the other end of the parish, Violet firmly refusing at the last moment to accompany her thither. Nick had promised to coach the boys at cricket practice that day, and Olga departed with a slight feeling of uneasiness and a determination to return as early as possible.

It was not, however, easy to curtail her visit. The patient was a garrulous old woman, and Olga was kept standing on the point of departure for a full half-hour. In the end she almost wrenched herself free and hurried home at a pace that brought her finally to her own door so hot and breathless that she was obliged to sit down and gasp in the hall before she could summon the strength to investigate any further.

Recovering at length, she went in search of Violet, and found her lounging under the limes in luxurious coolness with a book.

She glanced up from this at Olga's approach and smiled. There was a sparkle in her eyes that made her very alluring.

"Poor child! How hot you are! People with your complexion never ought to get hot. What have you been doing?"

She stretched a lazy hand of welcome, as Olga subsided upon the gra.s.s beside her.

"I've been hurrying back," Olga explained. "I thought you would be lonely."

"Oh dear, no! Not in the least." Violet glanced down at her book, a little ruminative smile curving the corners of her red mouth.

Olga peered at the volume. "What is it? Something respectable for once?"

"Not in the least. It is French and very highly flavoured. I daresay you wouldn't understand it, dear," said Violet. "You're such an _ingenue_."

Olga made a grimace. "I'd rather not understand some things," she said bluntly.