The vaster issue remained with him; the moral measure applied to his strength alone; the portentous effects of the next few minutes would be essentially moulded at the dictum of his emotional tendencies. The present exigency could be neither flouted nor shunned. This difficulty of another's evolving, augmented in no small measure by his own unseeing folly, demanded immediate and decisive solution. Apology was cowardice and parley an affront to Britton's frank fibre, and both of them smacked of guilt.
The suite of rooms taken by Maud Morris was situated on the first floor just to the right of the public hall, near the landing. She had at her disposal a luxurious drawing-room, a more luxurious boudoir, and bath and sleeping apartments.
Trascott stopped at the stair-head and folded his arms, signifying his exclusion from the approaching developments.
"I don't think you will have any need of me," he ventured reassuringly.
Britton vouchsafed no reply. The swift momentary reaction he experienced did not disturb the hard, emotionless mask of his features, and the sudden, peculiarly human revolt stirred by his unsatisfied heart-hunger was crushed with a tremendous summoning of will-power.
He swiftly traversed the corridor and entered the drawing-room.
It was empty, and a poignant chagrin struck Britton, inflicting pain scarcely definable from that of humiliation and disgrace, as he realized that perhaps Maud Morris, detecting impending exposure, had suddenly clutched seclusion as a safeguard with that wanton spirit and careless indifference of the time-hardened trifler.
While he paced a few steps in indecision, the boudoir curtains parted, and through the soft, shaded illumination of the room Maud Morris looked out at him.
"I am waiting for you," she called, with a tremulous smile which indicated the fluttering state of her feelings, yet left the origin of that uncertainty in doubt.
If it was a bait, Britton snapped like a deluded fish. The sudden presentation of the less disagreeable side of the situation weakened his guard. He acted before he reflected, and stepped forward into the boudoir.
The tapestry fell in place behind him, and with its silken swish Britton felt the error he had unthinkingly committed. This boudoir, which enthralled with its essentially feminine appointments, was the worst place in the world for rallying stern resolutions and formulating all-embracing decisions such as Britton proposed to make. The place could only shake his sincere purpose. The drawing-room, in graver setting, would have been far safer for him!