Approaching the door, she found herself face to face with Mr. Linley. He had just been giving directions to one of the servants, and was re-entering the drawing-room. She stopped, trembling and cold; but, in the very intensity of her wretchedness, she found courage enough to speak to him.
"You seem to avoid me, Mr. Linley," she began, addressing him with ceremonious respect, and keeping her eyes on the ground. "I hope--" she hesitated, and desperately looked at him--"I hope I haven't done anything to offend you?"
In her knowledge of him, up to that miserable evening, he constantly spoke to her with a smile. She had never yet seen him so serious and so inattentive as he was now. His eyes, wandering round the room, rested on Mrs. Linley--brilliant and beautiful, and laughing gayly. Why was he looking at his wife with plain signs of embarrassment in his face? Sydney piteously persisted in repeating her innocent question: "I hope I haven't done anything to offend you?"
He seemed to be still reluctant to notice her--on the one occasion of all others when she was looking her best! But he answered at last.
"My dear child, it is impossible that you should offend me; you have misunderstood and mistaken me. Don't suppose--pray don't suppose that I am changed or can ever be changed toward you."
He emphasized the kind intention which those words revealed by giving her his hand.
But the next moment he drew back. There was no disguising it, he drew back as if he wished to get away from her. She noticed that his lips were firmly closed and his eyebrows knitted in a frown; he looked like a man who was forcing himself to submit to some hard necessity that he hated or feared.