But Walker was no country bumpkin, to be overawed and silenced by a man of superior social status. He was puzzled, and stung, stung beyond hope of cure. Yet he was not afraid. Certain qualities of sharpness and cuteness warned him that if he controlled his temper, and did not bluster, he held the whip hand in a situation of which the true inwardness was still hidden.

"My business is not with you, Mr. Armathwaite," he said, with the utmost civility his tongue was capable of. "I heard of Miss Garth's arrival, and came to see her. It's not my fault if she's vexed at what I've said. I meant no offense. I only told the truth."

"I have reason to believe that you forced yourself into Miss Garth's presence;" and, in repeating the name, Armathwaite pressed the girl's shoulder gently as an intimation that no good purpose would be served by any correction in that respect. "Again, and for the last time, I request you to leave her."

"There's no last time about it," said Walker, who was watching Marguérite's wan and terror-stricken face. "I had a perfect right to call on Meg Garth. She daren't pretend she doesn't know me, and a false name can't humbug me, or Tom Bland, for that matter."

"I know you only too well," broke in the girl with a vehemence that brought a momentary rush of color to her cheeks. "You annoyed me for two years, and I'm sorry now I didn't complain to my father about your ridiculous oglings and shilling boxes of chocolates, which I gave to the village children."

She struck harder than she knew. Walker bridled like an annoyed turkey-cock. Armathwaite pressed Marguérite's shoulder a second time, and withdrew his hand.

"If your ungracious admirer won't leave you, Meg, you had better leave him," he said, smiling into her woebegone face. "Go into the drawing-room, or join Mrs. Jackson. I'll deal with Mr. Walker."

He held the door open, purposely blotting Walker out of sight, and the girl obeyed. She went out bravely enough, but he caught a smothered sob as she passed towards the kitchen. There also, he was bitterly aware, danger lurked in other guise, though the two well-disposed women might perchance have the wit to discredit Walker's revelations, whatever they were.

Closing the door, which swung half open again without his knowledge, he turned an inquiring and most unfriendly eye on the unwanted visitor.

"I hope you are ashamed of yourself," he said 

 Prev. P 59/167 next