He had taken his hands from her shoulders, and was standing sideways in the embrasure of the window, so that he could see her face; and he was smiling in a most unpleasant manner.
Rachel had never seen him like this before, and the first seed of active dislike was sown where as yet there had been nothing worse than indifference. The familiar colour rose and flooded her white brow and her whiter throat. She clenched her hands to still the flutter of her heart. She shut her teeth and struggled in silence against an ignominious impulse to cry.
But Mr. Kingston continued to watch her with that sardonic curiosity; and presently, like the traditional worm, she turned on him.
"Yes," she said, "I am an exception. I like Mr. Dalrymple very much—what little I know of him. I have seen no reason to do otherwise. I do not pay any attention to vulgar gossip."
A timid woman, trying to be defiant, generally fails by overdoing it; and so did she, poor child. Mr. Kingston heard the emphasis of strong emotion, that she would have given worlds to keep back, vibrating through her tremulous accents, and it drove him beyond those considerations of policy and politeness which he made a boast of as his rule of life and action—especially in his dealings with women. Rachel, however, in the category of women, was exceptionally placed with respect to him; and I suppose one must do him the justice to concede that this was an exceptional emergency.
"I'll tell you what," he said, smiling no longer, and speaking with a rough edge to his voice that betokened the original rude nature, usually so carefully clothed, and that she instinctively resented as an indignity, "Thornley can do as he likes about the people he brings here to associate with his wife, but I won't have you making acquaintance with a vagabond like that."
"I have already made his acquaintance," she said quietly.
"Then I beg you will break it off."
"How can I break it off while he is in the same house with me?"
She was surprised to find how strong she was to withstand this incipient tyranny; and yet her heart contracted with a pain very like despair.