“I suppose you know what I'm here for,” said the other, with evident self-restraint.
“Can't say I do,” returned Sanderson, cheerfully. “It needn't be anything in particular, need it?” He sat down, stretched his legs under the dining-room table and his arms on top of it. Manager Scott paced the floor nervously. Suddenly he stooped, picked up something and flung it on the table—a strip of thin gray veil. “You can save yourself a lie, Mr. Sanderson.”
Sanderson gravely regarded the delicate article which seemed to be put forth both as an accusation and a proof of something. Then he leaned forward and rang the bell. “I will overlook that implication for the present, Mr. Scott,” he remarked. “If it's a bluff, it's a good one. I take it it is n't. Susan, has any one been here this morning?” as that maiden tumbled into the room in a general tangle of feet.
“Yes, sir, and she's gone. My! She ain't comin' back to dinner! Lady rode the little mare and she went to church with Miss Sanderson.”
“Mademoiselle Mignon,” drawled Sanderson, turning to Manager Scott, “asked permission to ride the mare this morning. I was not aware she intended making an excursion to Back Meadows or I should have asked permission to attend her. It seems she went to Hagar with my aunt and proposes to ride back to Hamilton from there. It's my turn now, old man, and I'd like to know what was the necessity of making your visit so very tragic.”
“Oh, I presume I'm an ass,” returned the other, with a noticeable nervous twitching of the mouth and fingers, “and I presume I owe you an apology. I shall probably shoot the man that comes between Mignon and me, if he doesn't shoot first, which is all very asinine.”
“Quite irrespective of what mademoiselle may think about it?”
“Oh, quite.”
“Well,” said Sanderson, after a pause, “I rather sympathize with your way of looking at it. I shouldn't wonder if I had some of that primeval brutality myself.”
“Look here, Sanderson,” said the manager. “Without going into humiliating details as to how I came by the fact, which I don't know why you take so much pains to conceal, I know as well as you do that the issue is between you and me.”