"Then I must no longer intrude on you as your guest."
"You'll go——"
"Naturally I'll go. I can't stay in your house—it's the same as your house—when you think I no longer deserve your friendship. On my side, I think you're unreasonable; but I may be wrong. Perhaps it's I who am unreasonable, and can't see it. Anyhow, I shall have to go."
"I won't have Miss MacDonald in the house a minute after you leave," Aline said, almost threateningly.
"Why should you? Her packing won't take long, poor child."
"You'll have to send her back to her grandmother now," Aline warned him, in a brief flame of defiance.
"That's impossible. I wouldn't break my promise, even if Mrs. MacDonald didn't forbid her the house."
"She can't very well go alone with you to Edinburgh in your car, I suppose?"
"She is going to Edinburgh in my car, but not alone with me. Won't you go too, Mrs. West, and let us forget all this nonsense?"
"You call it nonsense? That shows how little you understand me, how willing you are to spoil everything for the sake of this wretched girl! Basil and I will simply go back to our original plan, and travel through Scotland together in a hired car."