"It's nothing," she said, with a dignified calm, as sudden and as alarming to Jack as her previous agitation—"nothing," she added, fixing her clear eyes on his, with a look so frank, so open, and withal, as it seemed to Jack, so cold and indifferent, that his own usually bold glance fell beneath it, "nothing but the heat and closeness; I am better now."
"Shall I"——began Jack, awkwardly.
"I want nothing, thank you."
Seeming to think that her conduct required some explanation, she added, hastily—
"There was a crowd at the door as I was going out, and in the press I felt giddy. I thought some one—some man—pushed me rudely. I daresay I was mistaken."
She glanced at the porch against which a man was still leaning.
The suggestion of her look and speech—if it were a suggestion—was caught instantly by Jack. Without waiting for her to finish the sentence, he strode to the door. To his wrathful surprise the lounger was Victor. Mr. Hamlin did not stop for explanatory speech. With a single expressive word, and a single dexterous movement of his arm and foot, he tumbled the astonished Victor down the steps at one side, and then turned toward his late companion. But she had been equally prompt. With a celerity quite inconsistent with her previous faintness, she seized the moment that Victor disappeared to dart by him and gain her carriage, which stood in waiting at the porch. But as it swiftly drove away, Mr. Hamlin caught one grateful glance from those wonderful eyes, one smile from those perfect lips, and was happy. What matters that he had an explanation—possibly a quarrel on his hands? Ah me! I fear this added zest to the rascal's satisfaction.
A hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned and saw the face of the furious Victor, with every tooth at a white heat, and panting with passion. Mr. Hamlin smiled pleasantly.
"Why, I want to know!" he ejaculated, with an affectation of rustic simplicity, "if it ain't you, Johnny. Why, darn my skin! And this is your house? You and St. Anthony in partnership, eh? Well, that gets me! And here I tumbled you off your own stoop, didn't I? I might have known it was you by the way you stood there. Mightn't I, Johnny?"
"My name is not Johnny—Carámba!" gasped Victor, almost beside himself with impatient fury.