"He's just coming," replied Joan.
"I asked you where he was," persisted the Squire, and when she said he had been in the billiard-room, asked her what he was doing there.
"Talking to Lady Aldeburgh," said Joan; and the Squire asked her what she was doing.
Then it came out. "Playing at cards with Mr. Trench," said Joan, who disliked Lady Aldeburgh and Bobby Trench equally, and didn't see why she shouldn't answer a plain question in plain terms.
Then the Squire went into his room, shutting the door decisively, and Humphrey went in after him, Joan having escaped for the second time.
Inside the Squire's room there was an outbreak. "I will not have it in this house. I simply will not have it," was the burden of his indignant cry.
"Well, look here, father," said Humphrey quietly. "I didn't know what was happening, and directly I did I stopped them. They gave it up at once when I said you wouldn't like it. They couldn't tell, you know. Everybody does it now."
The Squire spluttered his wrath. "I call it disgraceful," he said. "I don't know what the world's coming to. Cards on Sunday in a respectable God-fearing house! And you defend it!"
"No, I don't," said Humphrey. "I told you that I had stopped them."
The Squire looked at him. "Did they want you to play?" he asked. "You and a girl like Lady Susan! You don't mean to tell me her mother wanted her to play? Is the girl accustomed to that sort of thing, I should like to know?"