Part 26 (2/2)

”I think every one thinks very highly of her,” angrily.

”Do you? It probably pleases you to think so. I, for one, do not.”

”There is a certain cla.s.s of people whose likes and dislikes cannot possibly be accounted for,” says Guy, somewhat bitterly. ”I think you would find a difficulty in explaining to me your vehement antipathy toward Miss Beauchamp. You should remember 'unfounded prejudices bear no weight.'”

”That sounds like one of Miss Beauchamp's own trite remarks,” says Lilian, with a disagreeable laugh. ”Did you learn it from her?”

To this Chetwoode makes no reply, and Lilian, carried away by resentment at his open support of Florence, and by his determination not to accede to her request about young Heskett, says, pa.s.sionately:

”Why should you lose your temper about it?” (it is her own temper that has gone astray). ”It is all not worth a quarrel. Any one may plainly see how hateful I am to you. In a thousand ways you show me how badly you think of me. You are a petty tyrant. If I could leave your house, where I feel myself unwelcome,--at least as far as _you_ are concerned,--I would gladly do so.”

Here she stops, more from want of breath than eloquence.

”Be silent,” says Guy, turning to confront her, and thereby showing a face as pale as hers is flushed with childish rage and bafflement. ”How dare you speak like that!” Then, changing his tone, he says quietly, ”You are wrong; you altogether mistake. I am no tyrant; I do what is just according to my own conscience. No man can do more. As to what else you may have said, it is _impossible_ you can feel yourself unwelcome in my house. I do not believe you feel it.”

”Thank you,” still defiant, though in truth she is a little frightened by his manner: ”that is as much as to say I am telling a lie, but I do believe it all the same. Every day you thwart and disappoint me in one way or another, and you know it.”

”I do not, indeed. It distresses me much that you should say so. So much, that against my better judgment I give in to you in this matter of Heskett, if only to prove to you how you wrong me when you say I wish to thwart you. Heskett is pardoned.”

So saying, he turns from her abruptly and half contemptuously, and, striking across the gra.s.s, makes for a path that leads indirectly to the stables.

When he has gone some yards it occurs to Miss Chesney that she feels decidedly small. She has gained her point, it is true, but in a sorry fas.h.i.+on, and one that leaves her discontented with her success. She feels that had he done rightly he would have refused to bandy words with her at all upon the subject, and he would not have pardoned the reprehensible Heskett; something in his manner, too, which she chooses to think domineering, renders her angry still, together with a vague, uneasy consciousness that he has treated her throughout as a child and given in to her merely because it is a simpler matter to surrender one's judgment than to argue with foolish youth.

This last thought is intolerable. A child, indeed! She will teach him she is no child, and that women may have sense although they have not reached the admirable age of six-and-twenty.

Without further thought she runs after him, and, overtaking him just as he turns the corner, says, very imperiously, with a view to sustaining her dignity:

”Sir Guy, wait: I want to speak to you.”

”Well,” he says, stopping dead short, and answering her in his iciest tones. He barely looks at her; his eyes, having once met hers, wander away again without an instant's lingering, as though they had seen nothing worthy of attention. This plain ignoring of her charms is bitter to Miss Chesney.

”I do not want you to forgive that boy against your will,” she says, haughtily. ”Take back your promise.”

”Impossible! You have made me break my word to myself; nothing shall induce me to break my word to you. Besides, it would be unfair to Heskett. If I were to dismiss him now I should feel as though I had wronged him.”

”But I will not have his pardon so.”

”What!”--scornfully,--”after having expended ten minutes in hurling at me some of the severest eloquence it has ever been my fate to listen to, all to gain this Heskett's pardon, you would now have it rescinded! Am I to understand so much?”

”No; but I hate ungraciousness.”

”So do I,”--meaningly,--”even more than I hate abuse.”

”Did I abuse you?”

”I leave you to answer that question.”

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