She stared at him for an instant.
"Nobody," she answered, "need tell me such a thing as that twice." It was a fine phrase to cover a retreat; she left him and went to her own room.

It no more occurred to her to ask whether he meant what he said than if she had been struck in the head she would have inquired if the blow was real.
She did not come down to lunch.

Vincent and Mathilde ate alone.

Mathilde, as she told Pete, had begun to understand her stepfather, but she had not progressed so far as to see in his silence anything but an unapproachable sternness.

It never crossed her mind that this middle-aged man, who seemed to control his life so completely, was suffering far more than she, and she was suffering a good deal.
Pete had promised to come that morning, and she hadn't seen him yet.