“Well, Aggy, what’s the news? Still bothered by your two young men? Hullo! what’s wrong?”
“Read them!” cried Agatha, with a gesture towards the table.
“Eh? Head what? Oh, I see.”
He sat down at the table and put on his glasses. Agatha turned her face towards the wall; for her also everything was over. For a time no sound was audible save an occasional crackle of the note-paper in Lord Thrapston’s shaking fingers. Then, to Agatha’s indescribable indignation, there came another sort of crackle—a dry, grating, derisive chuckle—from that flinty-hearted old man, her grandfather.
“Good, monstrous good, ‘pon my life!” said he.
“You’re laughing at me!” she cried, leaping up.
“Well, my dear, I’m afraid I am.”
“Oh, how cruel men are!”
“H’m! They’re both men of spirit evidently.”
“Calder I can just understand. I—perhaps I did treat Calder rather badly—-”