'You are very welcome. Won't you take a chair--the chair, perhaps I ought to say? I've been sitting all the morning, and shall be glad of a change; unless you require some time. If so, I will send----'
'No, thanks, I prefer standing also,' she interrupted, with a quick flush. 'I only wanted to ask you a question. It is about George Keene.'
'Yes----' he replied coldly, unsympathetically; and yet he was noting her anxious eyes and haggard face with a sort of angry wonder why she should make herself so unhappy. Rose's fingers held nervously to the edge of the table by which she stood.
'Have you any reason--I mean, is there officially any reason to suppose that the Hodinuggur sluice was opened before the flood came down, or before Mr. Fitzgerald?'
She paused with her eyes on Lewis's face. She had lain awake almost all the night thinking of Chândni's threats and hints, and with clear sight had seen that their worth or unworth depended largely upon the official report of what had actually happened at Hodinuggur. To her father she could not go without danger from his want of judgment; there remained Lewis, who was always just, always to be trusted in such matters.
His heart gave quite a throb of dismayed surprise at her question, and forced him by contraries into still greater chilliness of manner.
'I'm afraid I can't quite see your right to ask me such a question--as yet. Perhaps if you could give me a reason----'
'Oh yes! I can give you a reason,' she interrupted, with a ring of scorn in her voice, 'though I think you might credit me with a good one where George is concerned, surely? Only if I have to tell, you had better send for the chair. I thought, perhaps, you would understand, for once.'
The bitterness of her tone did not escape him, and accentuated his annoyance. As he handed her the chair and leant negligently against the table, his hands behind him, he told himself that he was in for _mauvais quart d'heure_ with this girl. Man-like she would expect to know all, womanlike she would expect sentiment to outweigh official integrity. These thoughts did not serve to soften his heart towards the dead lad even at the beginning, and as her story unfolded itself, his face grew sterner and sterner. Hers lightened. It was an infinite relief to have his advice--his help, and she told him so frankly, even while she appealed for it.