He answered, on his part, more constrainedly still.
"It doesn't matter," he said.

"Another time will do." He drew back as he made the reply.

She advanced desperately, with the deliberate intention of detaining him by speaking again.
The attempt which he had made to withdraw, the constraint in his manner when he had answered, had instantly confirmed her in the false conviction that he, and he alone, had guessed the truth! If she was right--if he had secretly made discoveries abroad which placed her entirely at his mercy--the attempt to induce Grace to consent to a compromise with her would be manifestly useless.

Her first and foremost interest now was to find out how she really stood in the estimation of Julian Gray.

In a terror of suspense, that turned her cold from head to foot, she stopped him on his way out, and spoke to him with the piteous counterfeit of a smile.
"Lady Janet is receiving some visitors," she said.