There was, in fact, a spreading red stain upon the bandages at the tips of the fingers, and Sheridan put his hand back in the sling. “Now then!” he repeated. “You goin' to leave my house?”
“He will NOT!” sobbed Edith. “Don't you DARE order him out!”
“Don't you bother, dear,” said Lamhorn, quietly. “He doesn't understand. YOU mustn't be troubled.” Pallor was becoming to him; he looked very handsome, and as he left the room he seemed in the girl's distraught eyes a persecuted noble, indifferent to the rabble yawping insult at his heels—the rabble being enacted by her father.
“Don't come back, either!” said, Sheridan, realistic in this impersonation. “Keep off the premises!” he called savagely into the hall. “This family's through with you!”
“It is NOT!” Edith cried, breaking from her mother. “You'll SEE about that! You'll find out! You'll find out what'll happen! What's HE done? I guess if I can stand it, it's none of YOUR business, is it? What's HE done, I'd like to know? You don't know anything about it. Don't you s'pose he told ME? She was crazy about him soon as he began going there, and he flirted with her a little. That's everything he did, and it was before he met ME! After that he wouldn't, and it wasn't anything, anyway—he never was serious a minute about it. SHE wanted it to be serious, and she was bound she wouldn't give him up. He told her long ago he cared about me, but she kept persecuting him and—”
“Yes,” said Sheridan, sternly; “that's HIS side of it! That'll do! He doesn't come in this house again!”
“You look out!” Edith cried.
“Yes, I'll look out! I'd 'a' told you to-day he wasn't to be allowed on the premises, but I had other things on my mind. I had Abercrombie look up this young man privately, and he's no 'count. He's no 'count on earth! He's no good! He's NOTHIN'! But it wouldn't matter if he was George Washington, after what's happened and what I've heard to-night!”
“But, papa,” Mrs. Sheridan began, “if Edie says it was all Sibyl's fault, makin' up to him, and he never encouraged her much, nor—”
“'S enough!” he roared. “He keeps off these premises! And if any of you so much as ever speak his name to me again—”