To be sure, Mrs. Abington had professed to stand in need of no confession from him. She had--if she was to be believed--posted down to Bath the moment she had heard that Betsy had given her promise to Mr. Long, in order to tell Dick that she sympathised with him.
And if Mrs. Abington, living in London, was aware of his secret, might it not be possible that it was known to numbers of people living in Bath, who had far more frequent opportunities than could possibly be available to her to become aware of the truth?
This question caused him a sleepless hour after he had gone to bed. He could not endure the thought of being pointed at--of being whispered at by busybodies as one of the rejected suitors. His vanity recoiled from the thought of the bare possibility of his being relegated to so ignoble a position. He made up his mind to go to Mrs. Abington the next day and beg of her to keep his secret.
But, strangely enough, he became conscious of a curious reluctance--it seemed a curious instinct of reluctance--to go to Mrs. Abington. The truth was that what she had said to him when talking unreservedly and sincerely had somewhat frightened him. He had not quite understood what she meant when she had reproached herself for being a fool, and it was because he did not understand her that he was--in a measure--afraid of her. The young animal is invariably afraid of what it does not understand. To do so is an elementary impulse of instinct. That is why a dog is cowed when it sees a ghost; ghosts are unusual--very unusual; and that is why men who have not gone through a course of astronomy are terrified at the appearance of a comet.
And the more that Dick Sheridan tried to arrive at an understanding of what the fascinating actress had said to him, the more frightened he became. She had spoken with convincing sincerity. That was just where the element of the unusual appeared, giving rise to his fears.
And then there was that little twinge--was it of jealousy?--which he had felt on looking up the Room and seeing her lavishing her attention upon Tom Linley.
He resolved that for the present, at any rate, he would not go near Mrs. Abington.
But when was he to meet Betsy face to face?
It was not until he had dined the next day that the thought suddenly came to him: