“Well, you have done a thing I entirely disapprove of. You had no business to go over there all by yourself like that, at night.”
“But I didn’t go at night. I went in the morning.”
“But you came back at night. At least if you didn’t I’m a raw Britisher at reading spoor. How’s that?”
Spoor? Oh, this was what had given her away then. This was a factor Lalanté had wholly omitted to take into account, and even if she had not she had never reckoned on her father returning by that particular road at all.
“How’s that?” she repeated sweetly. “Why of course that you’re not a raw Britisher at all.”
“Surely you must see it isn’t the thing for a girl to go and spend the day with a man at his own place all alone,” he fumed. “Can’t you see that?”
“It depends on the girl and the man,” she answered demurely. “Not if they are engaged?”
“Not even then. Coming back late at night too. I’m surprised at Wyvern being a party to it; and shall let him have a bit of my mind next time I see him.”
“Oh, don’t blame him,” said Lalanté, rather quickly. “I paid him a surprise visit, and—and—well, under the circumstances I stopped on. I stopped on. He couldn’t very well turn me out. Now could he?”
Le Sage snorted. He had no reply ready. The shrewd practical farmer, the hard-headed man of business, was floundering more and more hopelessly out of his depth here.