In five minutes the inquisitor had drawn forth the whole innocent tale. She fell back in her chair, while Deb seemed to congeal slowly.
"Oh," moaned Frances, "no wonder they thought they could come and call and make friends with us! And no wonder," she added, more viciously, "that there he stands leering up at this window, when his horse has been ready this half hour."
"Is he doing that?" asked Deb quickly.
"Look at him!"
Deb rose and looked; then, with a firm hand, closed the two little windows and drew down the blinds. With a sob of rage, Rose jumped from her basket-chair, almost flung her cup and saucer upon the tea-tray, and rushed out of the room.
Thereupon the little family resolved itself into a strong government and one rebel.
"When I DO want to marry a shopkeeper," said weeping Rose to her sisters, "then it will be time enough to make yourselves ridiculous."
But they thought not. "No use," said they, "to shut the stable door after the steed is stolen." Danger, or the beginning of danger, had distinctly declared itself, and it was their part to guard the threatened point. So they took steps to guard it. The name of Breen was not mentioned, but its flavour lurked in every mouthful of conversation, like the taste of garlic that has been rubbed round the salad bowl in the salad that has not touched it; it filled the domestic atmosphere with a subtle acrimoniousness unknown to it before. And Rose was watched—not openly, but systematically enough for her to know it—never allowed to go out alone, or to sit in the attic after a certain hour; driven into brooding loneliness and disaffection—in other words, towards her fellow-victim instead of from him.